* Riverside literature Series 





POEMS FOB THE STUDY 

OF LANGUAGE 




iJkmmmmm 



Houghton Mifflin Co. 




Class _JTKSM3. 

Book. 

Copyright N° . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Wyt KtberstOe literature Series 



POEMS FOR THE STUDY 
OF LANGUAGE 

PRESCRIBED IN THE COURSE OF STUDY 

FOR THE COMMON SCHOOLS 

OF ILLINOIS 

WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

BY 

CHESTINE GOWDY 

FORMERLY TEACHER OF GRAMMAR IN THE 
ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL UNIVERSITY 

REVISED EDITION, 1912 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



PRII15 

OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT '' ^ ' 

\«\ 12. 

The publication of this book was approved and endorsed 
by the Standing Committee on the Illinois State Course of 
Study at a special meeting held during the convention of the 
Illinois State Teachers' Association at Springfield, Illinois, 
December 27-29, 1904. 



The present revised edition contains all the poems recom- 
mended for language study, in the latest (1912) revision of 
the Official Course of Study. 



COPYRIGHT I905 AND I907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
COPYRIGHT, I913, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




©CI.A350146 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

In 1889 a Course of Study for the State of Illinois con- 
sisting of eight years' work was compiled by a committee 
of six county superintendents appointed by a convention of 
county superintendents and other leading educators of the 
State who had been called together for this purpose by 
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

This course l has since been revised five times ; the last 
revision was made in the spring of 1912, by the Standing 
Committee of the County Superintendents' Section of the 
State Teachers' Association, composed of Hon. F. G. Blair, 
Superintendent of Public Instruction ; John W. Cook, Pre- 
sident Northern Illinois State Normal School ; David 
Felmley, President Illinois State Normal University ; L. 
C. Lord, President Eastern Illinois State Normal School ; 
Miss Cora M. Hamilton, Western Illinois State Normal 
School ; H. W. Shryock, Southern Illinois Normal Univer- 
sity ; W. C Bagley, Director School of Education, Univer- 
sity of Illinois ; George W. Brown, County Superintend- 
ent Edgar County ; Cyrus Grove, County Superintendent 
Stephenson County ; C. H. Root, County Superintendent 
Grundy County ; W. A. Hough, County Superintendent St. 
Clair County ; R. C. Moore, County Superintendent Ma- 
coupin County ; Charles Mcintosh, County Superintendent 
Piatt County. 

This language course calls for the study of a large num- 
ber of poems. Many of these poems were difficult to find, 
while others were published only in expensive editions. A 
1 Published by C. M. Parker, Taylorville, 111., price 30 cents. 



IV PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

demand, therefore, arose for a book which should contain 
all of the poems recommended, and the collection of this 
material into this volume was undertaken by Houghton 
Mifflin Company, as they are the authorized publishers of 
practically half of the poems recommended. In this they 
were assisted by other publishers and by authors who kindly 
granted permission for the use of poems controlled by 
them. 

Acknowledgment is due to Charles Scribner's Sons for the 
use of The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, taken from The Toil- 
ing of Felix and Other Poems, by Henry van Dyke, for 
Nightfall in Dordrecht, taken from Second Book of Verse, 
by Eugene Field, and for The Song of the Chattahoochee, 
by Sidney Lanier ; to Little, Brown and Company for Octo- 
ber's Bright Blue Weather, Down to Sleep, and September, 
by Helen Hunt Jackson ; to J. B. Lippincott Company for 
Sheridan's Ride, by Thomas Buchanan Read ; to E. P. 
Dutton and Company for Christmas Everywhere, by Phil- 
lips Brooks, and The Bluebird, by Emily Huntington Mil- 
ler ; to Fleming H. Revell Company for Our Flag, taken 
from Lyrics of Love, by Margaret Sangster. 

Thanks are also due to the following authors for courteous 
permission to use the poems mentioned : to Mrs. Lydia 
Avery Coonley Ward for Why do Bells for Christmas 
Ring; to Eben E. Rexford for The Bluebird ; to Richard 
Burton for Christmastide. 

The value of this book has been greatly enhanced by an 
introduction by Miss Gowdy, who is especially qualified to 
offer suggestions for the study of the recommended poems. 
The biography of Lowell was also written by Miss Gowdy. 
It is to be hoped that this book will prove useful to many 
teachers not only in Illinois but also in other States where 
the course is followed. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Literature in a Language Course. 

Language work in our elementary schools should deal 
chiefly with the art of speech. Only when pupils have 
reached the last years of their common-school course are they 
ready for any study of the science of language. But long 
before this time they should begin to acquire power in self- 
expression. Such language training should be provided as 
will tend to give some measure of clearness, freedom, and 
virility, as well as formal correctness of speech. 

The outline for language work in the Illinois State Course 
of Study was prepared in the belief that wealth of thought 
and power in expression must develop together. In the 
series of composition exercises suggested in the course of 
study, the natural interests of the child are recognized, — 
the interests that grow out of his home life, the life of the 
community, and the character of the surrounding country. 
To write acceptably he must write about subjects of which 
he has knowledge. But any series of language lessons that 
does not tend to make his own life and the world of which 
he is a part more interesting to him, more full of things to 
write about and talk about, is likely to fail of large language 
results. To help broaden and deepen the interests of the 
pupils, as well as to provide high ideals of expression, one 
or two poems for study are named each month in addition to 
the composition exercises and the more formal work of the 
course. Nearly a hundred poems are included in the six 
years' work outlined. They are all brought together for the 
first time ip this volume. 



vi SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Poems to be Studied Primarily as Literature. 

The wise teacher will ask about each poem first of all, 
how it may be made to give pleasure and awaken thought. 
She will see in it a piece of literature, not merely material 
for a language lesson. The chief aim in teaching a descrip- 
tive poem should be to make the pictures in the poem more 
vivid, and thus to awaken the imagination or to kindle an 
appreciation of kindred beauties in the pupil's immediate 
environment. In teaching a narrative poem the sequence 
of events must first be made clear. After that is accom- 
plished, the aim should be to give fuller meaning to the 
story by bringing out clearly the causes, motives, and results 
of acts. 

The younger pupils will enjoy the poems without any 
thought of why they like them, but unconsciously their 
thought and speech will be moulded by the study. In the 
higher classes effective expressions and passages should be 
pointed out, and the means of producing effects should 
be noted. 

Language Values in the Work. 

But while the poems are to be studied primarily as lit- 
erature, the teacher should be keenly conscious of the 
possibilities for language training connected with the 
work. 

The study of literature more than any other subject de- 
mands leisurely work, time for thought to ripen and to find 
fitting expression. The true literature class is a conversa- 
tion class, — a class in which each pupil is led to interpret 
the author, and to express his own thoughts without self- 
consciousness. It is of necessity a class in the art of ex- 
pression. 

Studying and memorizing the poems must enlarge the 
reading vocabularies of the pupils. The teacher should see 
that the work is made to enrich their writing and their 
speaking vocabularies as well. Children are too often satis- 
fied with a slender list of words representing very general 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY vh 

ideas. One word is made to serve for a variety of special 
uses, the hearer being trusted to interpret it according to 
the circumstances under which it is used. In the talk about 
the poem the teacher should use the new and more definite 
words of the poet, thus leading his pupils to do the same. 
Professor George Herbert Palmer says, " Let any one who 
wants to see himself grow, resolve to adopt two new words 
each week. It will not be long before the endless and en- 
chanting variety of the world will begin to reflect itself in 
his speech and in his mind as well. ,, Does not this suggest 
an ideal which every language teacher should have for his 
pupils, and which he should strive to impart to them before 
their school lives end ? 

A few special word exercises may be suggested : 

1. Make a list of descriptive words in the poem. What 
does each describe ? Use it to describe something else. 

2. Make a list of words that you never use. What word 
should you have used in the place of each if you had tried 
to express its meaning? Which word is better, yours or the 
author's ? Why ? 

3. Give as many synonyms as you can for the following 
words (these to be selected by the teacher from the poem). 
Did the author make a good choice in each case ? 

Relation of Study to Composition Exercises. 

Compositions should not often be based directly upon 
the poems. Pupils must be able to tell or write the story 
presented by a narrative poem, but no paraphrasing of de- 
scriptive passages should be called for. The conversations 
of the class hour will, however, often suggest subjects for 
compositions ; and the general character of a poem studied 
in a given month has often determined the character of 
a composition suggested for the month. For example, a 
descriptive poem is often accompanied by a descriptive 
composition ; and a narrative poem by a narrative compo- 
sition. 



vni SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Method of Presentation. 

With younger children every poem should be studied first 
in class. After a few words of introduction fitted to arouse 
the interest of the children or to remove any bar between 
them and the poet, the teacher should read the poem as well 
as she can, not stopping for comment unless it seem neces- 
sary to do so in order to hold the interest of the children. 
After this first reading, the poem should be read again part 
by part. This is the time for question, explanation, and 
discussion. If time permit, the teacher should now read 
the poem a third time, that the final impression may be left 
by the author's own words. The whole or a part of the 
poem should now be memorized. Children will in this way 
learn with delight poems which they could not read by them- 
selves with understanding or pleasure. Miss Dexheimer 
has used with children in the first grade many of the poems 
named in the third and the fourth year work. 

With older pupils the amount of help given by the teacher 
should depend upon the character of the special poem to be 
studied. In the seventh month of the sixth year A Legend 
of the Northland and The Voice of Spring are two poems 
named. The former is a simple narrative poem, involving 
no difficulties in meaning or phraseology. It may be studied 
from the book with no help from the teacher but a simple 
statement of the character of the preparation to be made. 
When class time comes, the pupils may be expected to tell the 
story clearly and to explain allusions. They may be trusted 
to see the moral with no help from the teacher. The last 
stanzas may well be ignored, as the incidental moral les- 
son is more effective with young people than the sermon. 
No poem should be memorized until it has been read in 
class. 

The Voice of Spring is a descriptive poem, dependent 
for its charm upon the music of the rhythm and its appro- 
priateness to the joyous progress described by the poem, and 
upon the pictures presented, many of which are unfamiliar 
to Illinois children. The teacher's success here depends 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY ix 

upon his own appreciation and enjoyment of the poem and 
his power to arouse these feelings in his pupils. This poem 
must he studied in class before the pupils are asked even to 
read it. 

Special Study of Authors. 

Younger children should enjoy literature for its own sake, 
with little interest in the personality of the writer. The 
names of authors may be given them, but only gradually 
should pleasure in the work of an author arouse interest in 
the writer himself. But in the seventh and eighth years of 
the course, opportunities are suggested for giving special 
attention to the life and writings of the poets whose names 
have become most familiar to the pupils. 

Biographical sketches are included as helps in the study 
of the authors most largely represented in the selections. 
Other material, such as pictures and magazine clippings, 
should be collected gradually, and each school library should 
contain one complete copy of each author's poems. 

Chestine Gowdy. 



CONTENTS 



/ 

THIRD YEAR 

First Month page 

Robert of Lincoln William Cullen Bryant 1 
Nightfall in Dordrecht Eugene Field 3 

Second Month 

The Corn-Song John Greenleaf Whittier 5 

The Kitten and Falling Leaves (Selection) 

William Wordsworth 7 
Good-Night and Good-Morning 

Lord Houghton 8 

Third Month 

Down to Sleep Helen Hunt Jackson 9 

Fourth Month 

A Visit from St. Nicholas Clement C. Moore 10 
Why do Bells for Christmas Ring? 

Lydia A. Coonley Ward 12 
Piccola Celia Thaxter 13 

Fifth Month 

Our Flag Margaret Sangster 14 

The Nightingale and the Glow- Worm 

William Cowper 15 
Sixth Month 

The Children's Hour 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 16 
Hiawatha's Childhood (Selection) 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 18 



xii CONTENTS 

Seventh Month 

The Planting of the Apple-tree 

William Cullen Bryant 21 
Hiawatha's Sailing (Selection) 





Henry Wads worth Longfellow 


24 


Wishing 


William Allingham 


28 


Eighth Month 






The Brook 


Alfred, Lord Tennyson 


29 


Spring 


Celia Thaxter 


31 


A Boy's Song 


James Hogg 


32 


The Bluebird 


Emily Huntington Miller 


33 



FOURTH YEAR 

First Month 

September Helen Hunt Jackson 34 

Ballad of the Tempest James T. Fields 35 

Second Month 

October's Bright Blue Weather 

Helen Hunt Jackson 36 
The Pumpkin John Greenleaf Whittier 37 

Robin Redbreast William Allingham 39 

Third Month 

The Village Blacksmith 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 41 
The Mountain and the Squirrel (The 

Fable) Ralph Waldo Emerson 43 



rth Month 




Little Gottlieb Phoebe Cary 


44 


The Sparrows Celia Thaxter 


48 


While Shepherds Watched their Flocks 




by Night Nahum Tate 


50 



CONTENTS xiii 

Fifth Month 

Paul Revere's Ride 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 51 
Snow-Bound (Selections : — The Storm ; The 
Kitchen Scene) John Greenleaf Whittier 56 

Sixth Month 

The Emperor's Bird's-Nest 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 59 
Sir Patrick Spens (An Old Ballad) 62 

Seventh Month 

Written in March William Wordsworth 66 
The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

Robert Browning 67 

Eighth Month 

The Sandpiper Celia Thaxter 77 

The Bluebird Eben Eugene Rexford 79 

Song — The Owl Alfred, Lord Tennyson 80 



FIFTH YEAR 

First Month 

Barbara Frietchie 

James Greenleaf Whittier 81 
An Order for a Picture Alice Cary 84 

Second Month 

The Fountain James Russell Lowell 88 

Sheridan's Ride Thomas Buchanan Read 89 

Third Month 

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in 

New England Felicia D. Hemans 91 

The One Hundredth Psalm The Bible 93 



xiv CONTENTS 

Fourth Month 

Christmas Bells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 93 
Christmas Everywhere Phillips Brooks 95 

Fifth Month 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 95 
Abraham Lincoln William Cullen Bryant 98 

Sixth Month 

The Arrow and the Song 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 99 
The Miller of the Dee Charles Mackay 99 
The Bell of Atri 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 101 
Seventh Month 

Plant a Tree Lucy Larcom 105 

Spring Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 106 

Young Lochinvar (Selection from Marmion) 

Sir Walter Scott 107 
Eighth Month 



The Daffodils William Wordsworth 


109 


Lord Ullin's Daughter Thomas Campbell 


110 


SIXTH YEAR 




First Month 




The Gray Swan Alice Cary 


113 


Bain in Summer 




Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 


115 


Second Month 




The Harvest Moon 




Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 


118 


Maize, The Nation's Emblem Celia Thaxter 


119 


The Builders Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 


121 



CONTENTS xv 

Third Month 

The Leak in the Dike Phcebe Cary 123 

The Song of the Camp Bayard Taylor 128 

Fourth Month 

Christmastide Richard Burton 131 

Christmas (Selection from In Memoriam) 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 132 
Fifth Month 

On the Grasshopper and Cricket 

John Keats 133 
Snow-Bound (Selections : — The Mother ; 
The Sisters; The Schoolmaster) 

John Greenleaf Whittier 134 
To-Day Thomas Carlyle 139 

Sixth Month 

Concord Hymn Ralph Waldo Emerson 140 

Song of Marion's Men William Cullen Bryant 141 

Old Ironsides Oliver Wendell Holmes 143 

Seventh Month 

The Voice of Spring Felicia D. Hemans 144 
A Legend of the Northland Phcebe Cary 147 
The Legend of the Crossbill 

Henry Wads worth Longfellow 150 
Eighth Month 

The Blue and the Gray 

Francis Miles Finch 151 
The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet 

Henry van Dyke 153 
Sir Lark and King Sun George MacDonald 156 



SEVENTH YEAR 

First Month 

Yussouf James Russell Lowell 158 



xvi CONTENTS 

Second Month 

Alice Brand (From The Lady of the Lake) 

Sir Walter Scott 160 
Third Month 

Hunting Song Sir Walter Scott 164 

Fourth Month 

June (From The Vision of Sir Launfal) 

James Russell Lowell 165 
Winter (From The Vision of Sir Launfal) 

James Russell Lowell 167 
Fifth Month 

" How They Brought the Good News from 
Ghent to Aix " Robert Browning 171 

Sixth Month 

O Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman 174 

Seventh Month 

Sir Galahad Alfred, Lord Tennyson 175 

Eighth Month 

To a Mountain Daisy Robert Burns 178 



EIGHTH YEAR 

First Month 

To a Waterfowl William Cullen Bryant 180 

Second Month 

Herve Riel Robert Browning 182 

Third Month 

Telling the Bees John Greenleaf Whittier 189 



CONTENTS xvii 

The Revenge Alfred, Lord Tennyson 195 

The Diverting History of John Gilpin 

William Cowper 199 
Fourth Month 

Song of the Chattahoochee Sidney Lanier 209 

Fifth Month 

Opportunity Edward Rowland Sill 211 

The Rhodora Ralph Waldo Emerson 211 

Sixth Month 

Lincoln (From Commemoration Ode) 

James Russell Lowell 212 
My Native Land (From The Lay of the Last 
Minstrel) Sir Walter Scott 214 

Seventh Month 

The Chambered Nautilus 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 215 

Eighth Month 

To the Dandelion James Russell Lowell 217 

For A' That and A' That Robert Burns 219 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 221 

John Greenleaf Whittier 225 

James Russell Lowell 228 

William Cullen Bryant 233 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 236 

INDEX OF AUTHORS 239 

INDEX OF TITLES 242 



ILLUSTEATIONS 

PAGE 

Craigie House, Longfellow's Home, Cambridge 16 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 29 

Kitchen in the Whittier Homestead 56 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 93 

William Cullen Bryant 141 

Elmwood, Lowell's Home, Cambridge 165 

John Greenleaf Whittier 189 

James Russell Lowell 212 



POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF 
LANGUAGE 



THIRD YEAR 

ROBERT OF LINCOLN 

William Cullen Bryant 

Merrily swinging on brier and weed, 

Near to the nest of his little dame, 
Over the mountain-side or mead, 

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name : 

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 5 

Spink, spank, spink; 
Snug and safe is that nest of ours. 
Hidden among the summer flowers. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, 10 

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ; 
White are his shoulders and white his crest. 
Hear him call in his merry note : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 15 

Look, what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so fine. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, 

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 20 



POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Passing at home a patient life, 

Broods in the grass while her husband sings : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear 25 

Thieves and robbers while I am here. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Modest and shy as a nun is she ; 

One weak chirp is her only note. 
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, 30 

Pouring boasts from his little throat : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Never was I afraid of man ; 

Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can ! 35 

Chee, chee, chee. 

Six white eggs on a bed of hay, 

Flecked with purple, a pretty sight ! 
There as the mother sits all day, 

Robert is singing with all his might : 40 

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Nice good wife, that never goes out, 
Keeping house while I frolic about. 

Chee, chee, chee. 45 

Soon as the little ones chip the shell, 

Six wide mouths are open for food ; 
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well, 
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. 

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 50 

Spink, spank, spink; 



THIRD YEAR 3 

This new life is likely to be 
Hard for a gay young fellow like me. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln at length is made 55 

Sober with work, and silent with care ; 
Off is his holiday garment laid, 
Half forgotten that merry air : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 60 

Nobody knows but my mate and I 
Where our nest and our nestlings lie. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Summer wanes ; the children are grown ; 

Fun and frolic no more he knows ; 65 

Robert of Lincoln 's a humdrum crone ; 
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
When you can pipe that merry old strain, 70 
Robert of Lincoln, come back again. 
Chee, chee, chee. 



NIGHTFALL IN DORDRECHT 
Eugene Field 

The mill goes toiling slowly around 
With steady and solemn creak, 

And my little one hears in the kindly sound 
The voice of the old mill speak. 



POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

While round and round those big white wings 5 

Grimly and ghostlike creep, 
My little one hears that the old mill sings 

" Sleep, little tulip, sleep ! " 

The sails are reefed and the nets are drawn, 

And, over his pot of beer, 10 

The fisher, against the morrow's dawn, 

Lustily maketh cheer. 
He mocks at the winds that caper along 

From the far-off clamorous deep, — 
But we — we love their lullaby song 15 

Of " Sleep, little tulip, sleep ! " 

Old dog Fritz in slumber sound 

Groans of the stony mart : 
To-morrow how proudly he '11 trot you round, 

Hitched to our new milk-cart ! 20 

And you shall help me blanket the kine 

And fold the gentle sheep, 
And set the herring a-soak in brine, — 

But now, little tulip, sleep ! 

A Dream-One conies to button the eyes 25 

That wearily droop and blink, 
While the old mill buffets the frowning skies 

And scolds at the stars that wink ; 
Over your face the misty wings 

Of that beautiful Dream-One sweep, 30 

And rocking your cradle she softly sings, 

" Sleep, little tulip, sleep ! " 



THIRD YEAR 5 

THE CORN-SONG 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard ! 

High heap the golden corn ! 
No richer gift has Autumn poured 

From out her lavish horn ! 

Let other lands, exulting, glean 5 

The apple from the pine, 
The orange from its glossy green, 

The cluster from the vine ; 

We better love the hardy gift 

Our rugged vales bestow, 10 

To cheer us when the storm shall drift 

Our harvest-fields with snow. 

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers 

Our ploughs their furrows made, 
While on the hills the sun and showers 15 

Of changeful April played. 

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain 

Beneath the sun of May, 
And frightened from our sprouting grain 

The robber crows away. 20 

All through the long, bright days of June 

Its leaves grew green and fair, 
And waved in hot midsummer's noon 

Its soft and yellow hair. 



POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And now, with Autumn's moonlit eves, 25 

Its harvest-time has come, 
We pluck away the frosted leaves, 

And bear the treasure home. 

There, when the snows about us drift, 

And winter winds are cold, 30 

Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, 
And knead its meal of gold. 

Let vapid idlers loll in silk 

Around their costly board ; 
Give us the bowl of samp and milk, 35 

By homespun beauty poured ! 

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth 

Sends up its smoky curls, 
Who will not thank the kindly earth, 

And bless our farmer girls ! 40 

Then shame on all the proud and vain s 

Whose folly laughs to scorn 
The blessing of our hardy grain, 

Our wealth of golden corn ! 

Let earth withhold her goodly root, 45 

Let mildew blight the rye, 
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit, 

The wheat-field to the fly : 

But let the good old crop adorn 

The hills our fathers trod ; 50 

Still let us, for His golden corn, 

Send up our thanks to God ! 



THIRD YEAR 



SELECTION FROM THE KITTEN AND 
FALLING LEAVES 

William Wordsworth 

That way look, my Infant, lo J 

What a pretty baby-show J 

See the Kitten on the wall, 

Sporting with the leaves that fall, 

Withered leaves — one — two — and three — 5 

From the lofty elder-tree ! 

Through the calm and frosty air 

Of this morning bright and fair, 

Eddying round and round they sink 

Softly, slowly : one might think, 10 

From the motions that are made, 

Every little leaf conveyed 

Sylph or Faery hither tending, — 

To this lower world descending, 

Each invisible and mute, 15 

In his wavering parachute. 

— But the Kitten, how she starts, 

Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts ! 

First at one, and then its fellow 

Just as light and just as yellow ; 20 

There are many now — now one — 

Now they stop and there are none. 

What intenseness of desire 

In her upward eye of fire ! 

With a tiger-leap half-way 25 

Now she meets the coming prey, 

Lets it go as fast, and then 



8 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Has it in her power again : 

Now she works with three or four, 

Like an Indian conjurer ; 30 

Quick as he in feats of art, 

Far beyond in joy of heart. 

Were her antics played in the eye 

Of a thousand standers-by, 

Clapping hands with shout and stare, 35 

What would little Tabby care 

For the plaudits of the crowd ? 

Over happy to be proud, 

Over wealthy in the treasure 

Of her own exceeding pleasure ! 40 



GOOD-NIGHT AND GOOD-MORNING 

Lord Houghton 

A FAIR little girl sat under a tree, 
Sewing as long as her eyes could see ; 
Then smoothed her work and folded it right 
And said, " Dear work, good-night, good-night! " 

Such a number of rooks came over her head, 5 

Crying " Caw ! Caw ! " on their way to bed, 
She said, as she watched their curious flight, 
" Little black things, good-night, good-night ! " 

The horses neighed, and the oxen lowed, 

The sheep's " Bleat ! Bleat ! " came over the road ; 10 

All seeming to say, with a quiet delight, 

" Good little girl, good-night, good-night ! " 



THIRD YEAR 9 

She did not say to the sun, " Good-night ! " 
Though she saw him there like a ball of light ; 
For she knew he had God's time to keep 15 

All over the world and never could sleep. 

The tall pink foxglove bowed his head ; 

The violets curtsied, and went to bed ; 

And good little Lucy tied up her hair, 

And said, on her knees, her favorite prayer. 20 

And while on her pillow she softly lay, 

She knew nothing more till again it was day ; 

And all things said to the beautiful sun, 

" Good-morning, good-morning ! our work is begun." 

DOWN TO SLEEP 

Helen Hunt Jackson 

November woods are bare and still ; 

November days are clear and bright ; 

i£ach noon burns up the morning's chill ; 

The morning's snow is gone by night ; 

Each day my steps grow slow, grow light, 5 

As through the woods I reverent creep, 

Watching all things lie " down to sleep." 

I never knew before what beds, 

Fragrant to smell, and soft to touch, 

The forest sifts and shapes and spreads ; 10 

I never knew before how much 

Of human sound there is in such 

Low tones as through the forest sweep 

When all wild things lie " down to sleep." 



10 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Each clay I find new coverlids 15 

Tucked in, and more sweet eyes shut tight ; 

Sometimes the viewless mother bids 

Her ferns kneel down, full in my sight ; 

I hear their chorus of " good-night ; " 

And half I smile, and half I weep, 20 

Listening while they lie " down to sleep." 

November woods are bare and still ; 
November days are bright and good ; 
Life's noon burns up life's morning chill : 
Life's night rests feet which long have stood ; 25 
Some warm, soft bed, in field or wood, 
The mother will not fail to keep, 
Where we can lay us " down to sleepe" 



A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS 

Clement C. Moore 

'T was the night before Christmas, when all through 

the house 
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. 
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. 
The children were nestled all snug in their beds, 5 
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads ; 
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, 
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap — 
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, 
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. 10 
Away to the window I flew like a flash, 
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash; 



THIRD YEAR 11 

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow 
Gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below ; 
When what to my wondering eyes should appear, 15 
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, 
With a little old driver, so lively and quick, 
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. 
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, 
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by 

name : 20 

" Now, Dasher ! now, Dancer ! now, Prancer and Vixen ! 
On, Comet ! on, Cupid ! on, Donder and Blitzen ! — 
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, 
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!" 
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, 25 
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, 
So, up to the housetop the coursers they flew, 
With a sleigh full of toys — and St. Nicholas too. 
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof 
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. 30 

As I drew in my head and was turning around, 
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound ; 
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, 
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and 

soot : 
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, 35 

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. 
His eyes, how they twinkled ! his dimples, how merry ! 
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry ; 
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, 
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. 
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, 41 
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. 
He had a broad face, and a little round belly 



12 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. 
He was chubby and plump — a right jolly old elf ; 45 
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. 
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, 
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. 
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, 
And filled all the stockings : then turned with a jerk, 
And laying his finger aside of his nose, 51 

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. 
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, 
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. 54 
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight, 
" Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night ! " 



WHY DO BELLS FOR CHRISTMAS RING? 

Lydia A. Coonley Wabd 

Why do bells for Christmas ring ? 
Why do little children sing? 

Once a lovely shining star, 
Seen by shepherds from afar, 
Gently moved until its light 5 

Made a manger cradle bright. 
There a darling baby lay, 
Pillowed soft upon the hay ; 
And its mother sang and smiled, 
"This is Christ, the holy Child." 10 

Therefore, bells for Christmas ring. 
Therefore, little children sing. 



THIRD YEAR 13 

PICCOLA 

Celia Thaxter 

Poor, sweet Piccola ! Did you hear 
What happened to Piccola, children dear ? 
'T is seldom Fortune such favor grants 
As fell to this little maid of France. 

'T was Christmas-time, and her parents poor 5 
Could hardly drive the wolf from the door, 
Striving with poverty's patient pain 
Only to live till summer again. 

No gifts for Piccola ! Sad were they 

When dawned the morning of Christmas-day; 10 

Their little darling no joy might stir, 

St. Nicholas nothing would bring to her ! 

But Piccola never doubted at all 

That something beautiful must befall 

Every child upon Christmas-day, 15 

And so she slept till the dawn was gray. 

And full of faith, when at last she woke, 

She stole to her shoe as the morning broke ; 

Such sounds of gladness filled all the air, 

'T was plain St. Nicholas had been there ! 20 

In rushed Piccola sweet, half -wild : 
Never was seen such a joyful child. 
" See what the good saint brought ! " she cried, 
And mother and father must peep inside. 



14 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Now such a story who ever heard ? 25 

There was a little shivering bird ! 

A sparrow, that in at the window flew, 

Had crept into Piccola's tiny shoe! 

" How good poor Piccola must have been ! " 
She cried, as happy as any queen, 30 

While the starving sparrow she fed and warmed, 
And danced with rapture, she was so charmed. 

Children, this story I tell to you, 

Of Piccola sweet and her bird, is true. 

In the far-off land of France, they say, 35 

Still do they live to this very day. 



OUR FLAG 

Margaret Sangster 

Flag of the fearless-hearted, 

Flag of the broken chain, 
Flag in a day-dawn started, 

Never to pale or wane. 
Dearly we prize its colors, 

With the heaven light breaking through, 
The clustered stars and the steadfast bars, 

The red, the white, and the blue. 



Flag of the sturdy fathers, 

Flag of the royal sons, 10 

Beneath its folds it gathers 

Earth's best and noblest ones. 



THIRD YEAR 15 

Boldly we wave its colors, 

Our veins are thrilled anew 
By the steadfast bars, the clustered stars, 15 

The red, the white, and the blue. 



THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE GLOWWORM 

William Cowpejb 

A nightingale, that all day long 
Had cheer'd the village with his song, 
Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
Nor yet when eventide was ended, 
Began to feel, as well he might, 5 

The keen demands of appetite ; 
When, looking eagerly around, 
He spied far off, upon the ground, 
A something shining in the dark, 
And knew the glowworm by his spark ; 10 

So stooping down from hawthorn top, 
He thought to put him in his crop. 
The worm, aware of his intent, 
Harangued him thus, right eloquent — 
" Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, 15 

" As much as I your minstrelsy, 
You would abhor to do me wrong 
As much as I to spoil your song ; 
For 't was the selfsame Power Divine 
Taught you to sing, and me to shine ; 20 

That you with music, I with light, 
Might beautify and cheer the night." 



16 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

The songster heard his short oration, 

And warbling out his approbation, 

Released him, as my story tells, 25 

And found a supper somewhere else. 

Hence jarring sectaries may learn 
Their real interest to discern ; 
That brother should not war with brother, 
And worry and devour each other ; 30 

But sing and shine by sweet consent, 
Till life's poor transient night is spent, 
Respecting in each other's case 
The gifts of nature and of grace. 

Those Christians best deserve the name 35 
Who studiously make peace their aim ; 
Peace both the duty and the prize 
Of him that creeps and him that flies. 



THE CHILDREN'S HOUR 
Henhy Wads worth Longfellow 

Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
That is known as the Children's Hour, 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 

And voices soft and sweet. 




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THIRD YEAR 17 

From my study I see in the lamplight, 

Descending the broad hall stair, 10 

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
And Edith with golden hair. 

A whisper, and then a silence : 
Yet I know by their merry eyes, 

They are plotting and planning together 15 
To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 

A sudden raid from the hall ! 
By three doors left unguarded, 

They enter my castle wall ! 20 

They climb up into my turret, 

O'er the arms and back of my chair ; 

If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses, 25 

Their arms about me entwine, 
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine ! 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 

Because you have scaled the wall, 30 

Such an old moustache as I am 
Is not a match for you all ? 

27-28. Near Bingen on the Rhine is a little square Mouse- 
Tower, so called from an old word meaning toll, since it was 
used as a toll-house ; but there is an old tradition that a certain 
Bishop Hatto, who had been cruel to the people, was attacked 
in the tower by a great army of rats and mice. See Southey's 
famous poem, Bishop Hatto* 



18 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

I have you fast in my fortress, 

And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the dungeon 35 

In the round-tower of my heart. 

And there will I keep you forever, 

Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 

And moulder in dust away ! 40 



SELECTION FROM HIAWATHA'S CHILDHOOD 

Henry Wads worth Longfellow 

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 

By the shining Big-Sea- Water, 

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 

Dark behind it rose the forest, 5 

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 

Rose the firs with cones upon them ; 

Bright before it beat the water, 

Beat the clear and sunny water, 

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. 10 

There the wrinkled old Nokomis 

Nursed the little Hiawatha, 

Rocked him in his linden cradle, 

29. Banditti, an Italian word for bands of robbers. 
31. An old moustache, a translation of the French phrase 
vieux moustache, which is used of a veteran soldier. 



THIRD YEAR 19 

Bedded soft in moss and rushes, 

Safely bound with reindeer sinews ; IS 

Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 

" Hush ! the Naked Bear will hear thee ! " 
Lulled him into slumber, singing, 

44 Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! 
Who is this that lights the wigwam ? 20 

With his great eyes lights the wigwam ? 
Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! " 
Many things Nokomis taught him 
Of the stars that shine in heaven ; 
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, 25 

Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses ; 
Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, 
Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, 
Flaring far away to northward , 

In the frosty nights of winter ; 30 

Showed the broad, white road in heaven, 
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, 
Running straight across the heavens, 
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. 
At the door, on summer evenings, 35 

Sat the little Hiawatha ; 
Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, 
Heard the lapping of the water, 
Sounds of music, words of wonder ; 

K Minnie- wawa ! " said the pine-trees, 40 

w Mudway-aushka ! " said the water ; 
Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Flitting through the dusk of evening, 
With the twinkle of its candle 
Lighting up the brakes and bushes, 45 



20 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And he sang the song of children, 
Sang the song Nokomis taught him : 

44 Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly, 
Little, flitting, white-fire insect, 
Little, dancing, white-fire creature, 50 

Light me with your little candle, 
Ere upon my bed I lay me, 
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids ! " 
Saw the moon rise from the water 
Rippling, rounding from the water, 55 

Saw the flecks and shadows on it, 
Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis?" 
And the good Nokomis answered : 

44 Once a warrior, very angry, 
Seized his grandmother, and threw her 60 

Up into the sky at midnight ; 
Right against the moon he threw her ; 
'T is her body that you see there." 
Saw the rainbow in the heaven, 
In the eastern sky, the rainbow, 65 

Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis ? " 
And the good Nokomis answered : 

44 'T is the heaven of flowers you see there ; 
All the wild-flowers of the forest, 
All the lilies of the prairie, 70 

When on earth they fade and perish, 
Blossom in that heaven above us." 
When he heard the owls at midnight, 
Hooting, laughing in the forest, 

" What is that ? " he cried, in terror ; 75 

" What is that," he said, "Nokomis?" 
And the good Nokomis answered s 



THIRD YEAR 21 

" That is but the owl and owlet, 
Talking in their native language, 
Talking, scolding at each other." 80 

Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How they built their nests in summer, 
Where they hid themselves in winter, 85 

Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Chickens." 
Of all beasts he learned the language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How the beavers built their lodges, 90 

Where the squirrels hid their acorns, 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 
Why the rabbit was so timid, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Brothers." 95 



THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE 

William Cdllen Bryant 

Come, let us plant the apple-tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made ; 
There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care, 5 

And press it o'er them tenderly, 
As, round the sleeping infant's feet, 
We softly fold the cradle-sheet ; 

So plant we the apple-tree. 



22 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

What plant we in this apple-tree? 10 

Buds, which the breath of summer days 
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays ; 
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast, 
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest ; 

We plant, upon the sunny lea, 15 

A shadow for the noontide hour, 
A shelter from the summer shower, 

When we plant the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs 20 

To load the May-wind's restless wings, 
When, from the orchard-row, he pours 
Its f ragrance through our open doors ; 

A world of blossoms for the bee, 
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, 25 

For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, 

We plant with the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon, 30 

And drop, when gentle airs come by, 
That fan the blue September sky, 

While children come, with cries of glee, 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass, 35 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 

And when, above this apple-tree, 
The winter stars are quivering bright, 
And winds go howling through the night, 



THIRD YEAR 23 

Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, 40 
Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth, 

And guests in prouder homes shall see, 
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine 
And golden orange of the line, 

The fruit of the apple-tree. 45 

The fruitage of this apple-tree 
Winds and our flag of stripe and star 
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, 
Where men shall wonder at the view, 
And ask in what fair groves they grew ; 50 

And sojourners beyond the sea 
Shall think of childhood's careless day, 
And long, long hours of summer play, 

In the shade of the apple-tree. 

Each year shall give this apple-tree 55 

A broader flush of roseate bloom, 
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, 
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, 
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower. 

The years shall come and pass, but we 60 

Shall hear no longer, where we lie, 
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, 

In the boughs of the apple-tree. 

And time shall waste this apple-tree. 
Oh, when its aged branches throw 65 

Thin shadows on the ground below, 
Shall fraud and force arid iron will 
Oppress the weak and helpless still ? 



24 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

What shall the tasks of mercy be, 
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears 70 

Of those who live when length of years 

Is wasting this little apple-tree ? 



" Who planted this old apple-tree?" 
The children of that distant day 
Thus to some aged man shall say ; 75 

And, gazing on its mossy stem, 
The gray-haired man shall answer them : 

" A poet of the land was he, 
Born in the rude but good old times ; 
'T is said he made some quaint old rhymes 80 

On planting the apple-tree." 



SELECTION FROM HIAWATHA'S SAILING 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

" Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree ! 
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree ! 

73. In a letter to Dr. Orville Dewey, written from New York 
in November, 1846, Bryant writes : " I have been, and am, at 
my place on Long Island, planting and transplanting trees, in 
the mist, sixty or seventy ; some for shade, most for fruit. 
Hereafter, men, whose existence is at present merely possible, 
will gather pears from the trees which I have set in the ground, 
and wonder what old covey, — for in those days the slang terms 
of the present time, by the ordinary process of change in lan- 
guages, will have become classical, — what old covey of past 
ages planted them ? " The poem was written in 1849, but not 
published until 1864, 



THIRD YEAR 25 

Growing by the rushing river, 

Tall and stately in the valley ! 

I a light canoe will build me, 5 

Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, 

That shall float upon the river, 

Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 

Like a yellow water-lily ! 

Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-Tree ! 10 

Lay aside your white-skin wrapper, 
For the Summer-time is coming, 
And the sun is warm in heaven, 
And you need no white-skin wrapper ! " 

Thus aloud cried Hiawatha 15 

In the solitary forest, 
By the rushing Taquamenaw, 
When the birds were singing gayly, 
In the Moon of Leaves were singing, 
And the sun, from sleep awaking, 20 

Started up and said, " Behold me ! 
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me ! " 

And the tree with all its branches 
Rustled in the breeze of morning, 
Saying, with a sigh of patience, 25 

w Take my cloak, O Hiawatha ! " 

With his knife the tree he girdled; 
Just beneath its lowest branches, 
Just above the roots, he cut it, 
Till the sap came oozing outward ; 30 

Down the trunk, from top to bottom, 
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder, 
With a wooden wedge he raised it, 
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken. 
17. A river of Chippewa County, northeastern Michigan. 



26 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" Give me of your boughs, Cedar ! 35 

Of your strong and pliant branches, 
My canoe to make more steady, 
Make more strong and firm beneath me ! " 

Through the summit of the Cedar 
Went a sound, a cry of horror, 40 

Went a murmur of resistance ; 
But it whispered, bending downward, 
" Take my boughs, O Hiawatha ! " 

Down he hewed the boughs of cedar, 
Shaped them straightway to a framework, 45 

Like two bows he formed and shaped them, 
Like two bended bows together. 

"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack! 
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-Tree I 
My canoe to bind together, 50 

So to bind the ends together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me ! " 

And the Larch, with all its fibres, 
Shivered in the air of morning, 55 

Touched his forehead with its tassels, 
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow, 
"Take them all, O Hiawatha! " 

From the earth he tore the fibres, 
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree, 60 

Closely sewed the bark together, 
Bound it closely to the framework. 

" Give me of your balm, O Fir-Tree ! 
Of your balsam and your resin, 
So to close the seams together 65 

That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me 1 " 



THIRD YEAR 27 

And the Fir-Tree, tall and sombre, 
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness, 
Rattled like a shore with pebbles, 70 

Answered wailing, answered weeping, 
* Take my balm, O Hiawatha ! " 

And he took the tears of balsam, 
Took the resin of the Fir-Tree, 
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure, 75 

Made each crevice safe from water. 

66 Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog ! 
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog ! 
I will make a necklace of them, 
Make a girdle for my beauty, 80 

And two stars to deck her bosom ! " 

From a hollow tree the Hedgehog 
With his sleepy eyes looked at him, 
Shot his shining quills, like arrows, 
Saying, with a drowsy murmur, 85 

Through the tangle of his whiskers, 
« Take my quills, O Hiawatha ! " 

From the ground the quills he gathered, 
All the little shining arrows, 
Stained them red and blue and yellow, 90 

With the juice of roots and berries ; 
Into his canoe he wrought them, 
Round its waist a shining girdle, 
Round its bows a gleaming necklace, 
On its breast two stars resplendent. 95 

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded 
In the valley, by the river, 
In the bosom of the forest ; 
And the forest's life was in it, 
All its mystery and its magic, 100 



28 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

All the lightness of the birch-tree, 

All the toughness of the cedar, 

All the larch's supple sinews ; 

And it floated on the river, 

Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 105 

Like a yellow water-lily. 



WISHING 

William Allingham 

Ring-ting ! I wish I were a primrose, 

A bright yellow primrose, blowing in the spring ! 

The stooping boughs above me, 

The wandering bee to love me, 
The fern and moss to creep across, 5 

And the elm tree for our king ! 

Nay — stay ! I wish I were an elm tree, 
A great, lofty elm tree, with green leaves gay ! 
The winds would set them dancing, 
The sun and moonshine glance in, 10 

The birds would house among the boughs, 
And sweetly sing. 

Oh — no! I wish I were a robin, 

A robin or a little wren, everywhere to go ; 

106. "The bark canoe of the Chippeways is, perhaps, the 
most beautiful and light model of all the water craft that ever 
were invented. They are generally made complete with the 
rind of one birch-tree, and so ingeniously shaped and sewed 
together with roots of the tamarack, which they call wattap, 
that they are w r ater-tight and ride upon the water, as light as a 
cork." — Catlin, p. 605. 



THIRD YEAR 29 

Through forest, field, or garden, 15 

And ask no leave or pardon, 
Till winter comes with icy thumbs 
To ruffle up our wing ! 

\\r e ii _ tell! Where should I fly to, 

Where go to sleep in the dark wood or dell ? 20 

Before a day was over, 

Home comes the rover, 
For mother's kiss — sweeter this 

Than any other thing. 

THE BROOK 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

1 come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally, 
And sparkle out among the fern, 

To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, 5 

Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town, 

And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 

To join the brimming river ; 10 

For men may come, and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

I chatter over stony ways, 

In little sharps and trebles ; 
I bubble into eddying bays ; 15 

I babble on the pebbles. 



30 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

With many a curve niy bank I fret 

By many a field and fallow, 
And many a fairy foreland set 

With willow-weed and mallow. 20 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river; 
For men may come, and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

I wind about, and in and out, 25 

With here a blossom sailing, 
And here and there a lusty trout, 

And here and there a grayling, 

And here and there a foamy flake 

Upon me as I travel, 30 

With many a silvery waterbreak 
Above the golden gravel, 

And draw them all along and flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come, and men may go, 35 

But I go on forever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers, 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 40 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among my skimming swallows ; 

I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 



THIRD YEAR 31 

I murmur under moon and stars 45 

In brambly wildernesses ; 
I linger by my shingly bars ; 

I loiter round my cresses ; 

And out again I curve and flow- 
To join the brimming river, 50 

For men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 



SPRING 

Celia Thaxter 

The alder by the river 

Shakes out her powdery curls ; 
The willow buds in silver 

For little boys and girls. 

The little birds fly over 5 

And oh, how sweet they sing ! 

To tell the happy children 

That once again 't is spring. 

The gay green grass comes creeping 

So soft beneath their feet ; 10 

The frogs begin to ripple 

A music clear and sweet. 

And buttercups are coming, 

And scarlet columbine, 
And in the sunny meadows 15 

The dandelions shine. 



32 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And just as many daisies 

As their soft hands can hold 

The little ones may gather, 

All fair in white and gold. 20 

Here blows the warm red clover, 
There peeps the violet blue ; 

O happy little children ! 

God made them all for you. 

A BOY'S SONG 

James Hogg 

Where the pools are bright and deep, 
Where the gray trout lies asleep, 
Up the river, and o'er the lea, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the blackbird sings the latest, 5 

Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, 
Where the nestlings chirp and flee, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the mowers mow the cleanest, 

Where the hay lies thick and greenest; 10 

There to trace the homeward bee, 

That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the hazel bank is steepest, 

Where the shadow falls the deepest, 

Where the clustering nuts fall free, 15 

That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Why the boys should drive away 
Little sweet maidens from the play, 



THIRD YEAR 33 

Or love to banter and fight so well, 

That 's the thing I never could tell. 20 

But this I know, I love to play, 
Through the meadow, among the hay ; 
Up the water and o'er the lea, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 



' THE BLUEBIRD l 

Emily Huntington Miller 

I "KNOW the song that the bluebird is singing, 
Out in the apple-tree where he is swinging, 
Brave little fellow ! the skies may be dreary, 
Nothing cares he while his heart is so cheery. 

Hark ! how the music leaps out from his throat ! 5 
Hark ! was there ever so merry a note ? 
Listen awhile, and you '11 hear what he 's saying, 
Up in the apple-tree, swinging and swaying : 

" Dear little blossoms, down under the snow, 
You must be weary of winter, I know ; 10 

Hark ! while I sing you a message of cheer, 
Summer is coming, and spring-time is here ! 

" Little white snowdrops, I pray you, arise; 
Bright yellow crocus, come, open your eyes ; 
Sweet little violets hid from the cold, 15 

Put on your mantles of purple and gold : 
Daffodils, daffodils ! say, do you hear ? 
Summer is coming, and spring-time is here ! " 

1 By permission of E. P. Dutton & Co. 



FOURTH YEAR 

SEPTEMBER 
Helen Hunt Jackson 

The golden-rod is yellow ; 

The corn is turning brown ; 
The trees in apple orchards 

With fruit are bending down. 

The gentian's bluest fringes 5 

Are curling in the sun ; 
In dusty pods the milkweed 

Its hidden silk has spun. 

The sedges flaunt their harvest, 

In every meadow nook ; 10 

And asters by the brook-side 

Make asters in the brook. 

From dewy lanes at morning 

The grapes' sweet odors rise ; 
At noon the roads all flutter 15 

With yellow butterflies. 

By all these lovely tokens 

September days are here, 
With summer's best of weather, 

And autumn's best of cheer. 20 

But none of all this beauty 

Which floods the earth and air 



FOURTH YEAR 35 

Is unto me the secret 

Which makes September fair 

'T is a thing which I remember ; 25 

To name it thrills me yet ; 
One day of one September 

I never can forget. 



BALLAD OF THE TEMPEST 

James T. Fields 

We were crowded in the cabin, 
Not a soul would dare to sleep — 

It was midnight on the waters, 
And a storm was on the deep. 

' T is a fearful thing in winter 5 

To be shattered by the blast, 
And to hear the rattling trumpet 

Thunder, " Cut away the mast ! " 

So we shuddered there in silence, — 

For the stoutest held his breath, 10 

While the hungry sea was roaring, 
And the breakers talked with Death. 

As thus we sat in darkness, 

Each one busy with his prayers, — 
44 We are lost ! " the captain shouted, 15 

As he staggered down the stairs. 



36 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

But his little daughter whispered, 
As she took his icy hand, 
" Is not God upon the ocean, 

Just the same as on the land ? " 20 

Then we kissed the little maiden, 

And we spoke in better cheer, 
And we anchored safe in harbor 

When the moon was shining clear. 



OCTOBER'S BRIGHT BLUE WEATHER 
Helen Hunt Jackson 

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June, 

And flowers of June together, 
Ye cannot rival for one hour 

October's bright blue weather, 

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste, 5 

Belated, thriftless, vagrant, 
And Golden-Rod is dying fast, 

And lanes with grapes are fragrant ; 

When Gentians roll their fringes tight 

To save them for the morning, 10 

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs 
Without a sound of warning ; 

When on the ground red apples lie 
In piles like jewels shining, 



FOURTH YEAR 37 

And redder still on old stone walls 15 

Are leaves of woodbine twining ; 

When all the lovely wayside things 
Their white-winged seeds are sowing, 

And in the fields, still green and fair, 

Late aftermaths are growing ; 20 

When springs run low, and on the brooks, 

In idle golden freighting, 
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush 

Of woods, for winter waiting ; 

When comrades seek sweet country haunts, 25 

By twos and twos together, 
A.nd count like misers hour by hour, 

October's bright blue weather. 

suns and skies and flowers of June, 

Count all your boasts together, 30 

Love loveth best of all the year 
October's bright blue weather. 



THE PUMPKIN 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

O, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, 
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, 
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold, 
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold, 
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew, 5 
While he waited to know that his warning was true, 
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain 
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain- 



38 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden 
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden ; 10 
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold 
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of 
gold; 

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North, 
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth, 
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines, 15 
And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

Ah ! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from 

West, 
From North and from South come the pilgrim and 

guest, 
When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his 

board 
The old broken links of affection restored, 20 

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once 

more, 
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled 

before, 
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye ? 
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin 

pie? 

O, — fruit loved of boyhood ! — the old days recalling, 25 
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were 

falling ! 
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, 
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within ! 
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all 

in tune, 
Our chair a broad pumpkin, — our lantern the moon, 30 



FOURTH YEAR 39 

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam, 
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team ! 

Then thanks for thy present ! — none sweeter or better 
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter ! 

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, 35 
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than 

thine ! 
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to ex- 
press, 
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, 
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, 
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine 
grow, 40 

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky 
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie ! 



ROBIN REDBREAST 

William Allingham 

Good-bye, good-bye to summer! 

For summer 's nearly done ; 
The garden smiling faintly, 

Cool breezes in the sun ; 
Our thrushes now are silent, 

Our swallows flown away, — 
But Robin 's here, in coat of brown, 

And scarlet breast-knot gay. 



40 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 10 

Robin sings so sweetly 

In the falling of the year. 



Bright yellow, red, and orange, 

The leaves come down in hosts ; 
The trees are Indian princes, 15 

But soon they ' 11 turn to ghosts ; 
The scanty pears and apples 

Hang russet on the bough ; 
It 's autumn, autumn, autumn late, 

'T will soon be winter now. 20 

Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 
And what will this poor Robin do ? 

For pinching days are near. 



The fire-side for the cricket, 25 

The wheat-stack for the mouse, 
When trembling night-winds whistle 

And moan all round the house. 
The frosty ways like iron, 

The branches plumed with snow, — 30 
Alas ! in winter dead and dark, 

Where can poor Robin go ? 
Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 
And a crumb of bread for Robin, 35 

His little heart to cheer. 



FOURTH YEAR 41 

THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

The suggestion of the poem came from the smithy which the poet 
passed daily, and which stood beneath a horse-chestnut tree not far 
from his house in Cambridge. The tree, against the protests of Mr. 
Longfellow and others, was removed in 1876, on the ground that it 
imperilled drivers of heavy loads who passed under it. 

Under a spreading chestnut-tree 

The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 

With large and sinewy hands ; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 5 

Are strong as iron bands. 



His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 

His face is like the tan ; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, 

He earns whate'er he can, 10 

And looks the whole world in the face, 

For he owes not any man. 



Week in, week out, from morn till night, 

You can hear his bellows blow ; 
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, 15 

With measured beat and slow, 
Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 

When the evening sun is low. 



42 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door; 20 

They love to see the flaming forge, 
And hear the bellows roar, 

And catch the burning sparks that fly- 
Like chaff from a threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church, 25 

And sits among his boys ; 
He hears the parson pray and preach, 

He hears his daughter's voice, 
Singing in the village choir, 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 30 

It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 

Singing in Paradise ! 
He needs must think of her once more, 

How in the grave she lies ; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 35 

A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, 

Onward through life he goes ; 
Each morning sees some task begin, 

Each evening sees it close ; 40 

Something attempted, something done, 

Has earned a night's repose. 

23. After this poem had been printed for some time, Mr. Long- 
fellow was disposed to change the word " catch " to " watch," 
but the original form had grown so familiar that he decided to 
leave it. 



FOURTH YEAR 43 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 

For the lesson thou hast taught ! 
Thus at the flaming forge of life 45 

Our fortunes must be wrought ; 
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 

Each burning deed and thought. 



THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL 
(THE FABLE) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The mountain and the squirrel 
Had a quarrel, 

And the former called the latter " Little prig; " 
Bun replied, 
i6 You are doubtless very big, 5 

But all sorts of things and weather 
Must be taken in together 
To make up a year, 
And a sphere : 

And I think it no disgrace 10 

To occupy my place. 
If I 'm not so large as you, 
You are not so small as I, 
And not half so spry ; 

1 11 not deny you make 15 

A very pretty squirrel track. 

Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 
If I cannot carry forests on my back, 
Neither can you crack a nut." 



44 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 
LITTLE GOTTLIEB 

A CHRISTMAS STORY 
Phoebe Cary 

Across the German Ocean, 

In a country far from our own, 
Once, a poor little boy, named Gottlieb, 

Lived with his mother alone. 

They dwelt in the part of a village 5 

Where the houses were poor and small, 

But the home of little Gottlieb 
Was the poorest one of all. 

He was not large enough to work, 

And his mother could do no more 10 

(Though she scarcely laid her knitting down) 

Than keep the wolf from the door. 

She had to take their threadbare clothes, 

And turn, and patch, and darn ; 
For never any women yet 15 

Grew rich by knitting yarn. 

And oft at night, beside her chair, 

Would Gottlieb sit, and plan 
The wonderful things he would do for her, 

When he grew to be a man. 20 



FOURTH YEAR 45 

One night she sat and knitted, 

And Gottlieb sat and dreamed, 
When a happy fancy all at once 

Upon his vision beamed. 

'T was only a week till Christmas, 25 

And Gottlieb knew that then 
The Christ-child, who was born that day, 

Sent down good gifts to men. 

But he said, " He will never find us, 

Our home is so mean and small, 30 

And we, who have most need of them, 
Will get no gifts at all." 

When all at once a happy light 

Came into his eyes so blue, 
And lighted up his face with smiles, 35 

As he thought what he could do. 

Next day when the postman's letters 

Came from all over the land ; 
Came one for the Christ-child, written 

In a child's poor trembling hand. 40 

You may think he was sorely puzzled 

What in the world to do ; 
So he went to the Burgomaster, 

As the wisest man he knew. 

And when they opened the letter, 45 

They stood almost dismayed 
That such a little child should dare 

To ask the Lord for aid. 



46 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Then the Burgomaster stammered, 

And scarce knew what to speak, 50 

And hastily he brushed aside 

A drop, like a tear, from his cheek. 

Then up he spoke right gruffly, 
And he turned himself about : 
j This must be a very foolish boy, 55 

And a small one, too, no doubt." 

But when six rosy children 

That night about him pressed, 
Poor, trusting little Gottlieb 

Stood near him, with the rest, 60 

And he heard his simple, touching prayer, 

Through all their noisy play ; 
Though he tried his very best to put 

The thought of him away. 

A wise and learned man was he, 65 

Men called him good and just ; 
But his wisdom seemed like foolishness, 

By that weak child's simple trust. 

Now when the morn of Christmas came, 

And the long, long week was done, 70 

Poor Gottlieb, who scarce could sleep, 
Rose up before the sun, 

And hastened to his mother, 

But he scarce might speak for fear, 

When he saw her wondering look, and saw 75 
The Burgomaster near. 



FOURTH YEAR 47 

He was n't afraid of the Holy Babe, 

Nor his mother, meek and mild ; 
But he felt as if so great a man 

Had never been a child. 80 

Amazed the poor child looked, to find 

The hearth was piled with wood, 
And the table, never full before, 

Was heaped with dainty food. 

Then half to hide from himself the truth 85 

The Burgomaster said, 
While the mother blessed him on her knees, 

And Gottlieb shook for dread ; 

* Nay, give no thanks, my good dame, 

To such as me for aid, 90 

Be grateful to your little son, 

And the Lord to whom he prayed ! " 

Then turning round to Gottlieb, 

" Your written prayer, you see, 
Came not to whom it was addressed, 95 

It only came to me ! 

* 'T was but a foolish thing you did, 

As you must understand ; 
For though the gifts are yours, you know, 

You have them from my hand." 100 

Then Gottlieb answered fearlessly, 
Where he humbly stood apart, 

* But the Christ-child sent them all the same, 

He put the thought in your heart ! " 



48 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

THE SPARROWS 

Celia Thaxteb 

In the far-off land of Norway, 

Where the winter lingers late, 

Ajid long for the singing-birds and flowers 
The little children wait ; 



When at last the summer ripens 

And the harvest is gathered in, 

And food for the bleak, drear days to come 
The toiling people win ; 



Through all the land the children 

In the golden fields remain 10 

Till their busy little hands have gleaned 

A generous sheaf of grain ; 



All the stalks by the reapers forgotten 

They glean to the very least, 
To save till the cold December, 16 

For the sparrows' Christmas feast. 



And then through the frost-locked country 
There happens a wonderful thing : 

The sparrows flock north, south, east, west, 

For the children's offering. 20 



FOURTH YEAR 49 

Of a sudden, the day before Christmas, 

The twittering crowds arrive, 
And the bitter, wintry air at once 

With their chirping is all alive. 

They perch upon roof and gable, 25 

On porch and fence and tree, 
They flutter about the windows 

And peer in curiously. 

And meet the eyes of the children, 

Who eagerly look out 30 

With cheeks that bloom like roses red, 

And greet them with welcoming shout. 

On the joyous Christmas morning, 

In front of every door 
A tall pole, crowned with clustering grain, 35 

Is set the birds before. 

And which are the happiest, truly 

It would be hard to tell ; 
The sparrows who share in the Christmas cheer, 

Or the children who love them well ! 40 

How sweet that they should remember, 

With faith so full and sure, 
That the children's bounty awaited them 

The whole wide country o'er ! 

When this pretty story was told me 45 

By one who had helped to rear 
The rustling grain for the merry birds 

In Norway, many a year, 



50 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

I thought that our little children 

Would like to know it too, 50 

It seems to me so beautiful, 
So blessed a thing to do, 

To make God's innocent creatures see 

In every child a friend, 
And on our faithful kindness 55 

So fearlessly depend. 



WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS 
BY NIGHT 

Nahdm Tate 

While shepherds watched their flocks by night, 

All seated on the ground, 
The angel of the Lord came down, 
And glory shone around. 
" Fear not," said he, for mighty dread 5 

Had seized their troubled mind ; 
" Glad tidings of great joy I bring 
To you and all mankind. 

" To you, in David's town, this day, 

Is born of David's line 10 

A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, 

And this shall be his sign : 
The heavenly babe you there shall find 

To human view displayed, 
All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands, 15 

And in a manger laid." 



FOURTH YEAR 51 

Thus spake the seraph ; and forthwith 

Appeared a shining throng 
Of angels, praising God, who thus 

Addressed their joyful song : 20 

" All glory be to God on high, 

And to the earth be peace ; 
Good-will henceforth from heaven to men 

Begin and never cease.'' 



PAUL REVERE'S RIDE 

Henry Wadswokth Longfellow 

Mr. Longfellow imagined a party of friends met at a country inn, 
and telling tales before the fire. The first of these Tales of a Way- 
side Inn was by the landlord, and is this story of Paul Revere. Revere 
was an American patriot, a silversmith and engraver b)~ trade, whose 
tea-pots and cream jugs and tankards may be found in old Boston 
families. He was a spirited man, and in the secrets of the Boston 
patriots. 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five ; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. & 

He said to his friend, " If the British march 
By land or sea from the town to-night, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — 

9. There has been some discussion as to the church tower from 
which the lanterns were hung, some claiming that the church was 
the old North Meeting-house in North Square, pulled down 



52 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 10 

And I on the opposite shore will be, 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, " Good night ! " and with muffled oar 15 

Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 

Just as the moon rose over the bay, 

Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 

The Somerset, British man-of-war ; 

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 20 

Across the moon like a prison bar, 

And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 

By its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street, 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 25 

Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 30 



A £> 



Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, 
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 

afterward for fuel, during the siege of Boston; but the evidence 
points more clearly to Christ Church, still standing, and often 
spoken of as the North Church. The poet has departed some- 
what from the actual historic facts, since Revere did not watch 
for the lights, nor did he reach Concord. In 1894, when April 
19 was made a holiday in Massachusetts, under the name of 
Patriots' Day, there was an attempt at acting out the famous 
story of the ride. 



FOURTH YEAR 53 

To the belfry-chamber overhead, 

And startled the pigeons from their perch 

On the sombre rafters, that round him made 35 

Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 

To the highest window in the wall, 

Where he paused to listen and look down 

A moment on the roofs of the town, 40 

And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 

In their night encampment on the hill, 

Wrapped in silence so deep and still 

That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, 45 

The watchful night-wind, as it went 

Creeping along from tent to tent, 

And seeming to whisper, " All is well ! " 

A moment only he feels the spell 

Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread 50 

Of the lonely belfry and the dead ; 

For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 

On a shadowy something far away, 

Where the river widens to meet the bay, — 

A line of black that bends and floats 55 

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 

Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 

On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 

Now he patted his horse's side, 60 

Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 

Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, 

And turned and tightened his saddle-girth ; 



54 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

But mostly he watched with eager search 

The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, 65 

As it rose above the graves on the hill, 

Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 

And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height 

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! 

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 7G 

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 

A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 75 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet : 

That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and the 

light, 
The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 80 

He has left the village and mounted the steep, 

And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, 

Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides ; 

And under the alders that skirt its edge, 

Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, 85 

Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock, 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog, 90 

And felt the damp of the river fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 



FOURTH YEAR 55 

It was one by the village clock, 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 95 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 100 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 105 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 

Who that day would be lying dead, 

Pierced by a British musket-ball. 110 

You know the rest. In the books you have read, 
How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 115 

Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; # 
And so through the night went his cry of alarm 
To every Middlesex village and farm, — 121 

A cry of defiance and not of fear. 



56 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo forevtvrmore ! 

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 125 

Through all our history, to the last, 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 130 



SELECTIONS FROM SNOW-BOUND 

John Greenleaf Whittieb 

THE STORM 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 5 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 10 

So all night long the storm roared on : 

The morning broke without a sun ; 

In tiny spherule traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake and pellicle 15 

All day the hoary meteor fell ; 

And, when the second morning shone, 



FOURTH YEAR 57 

We looked upon a world unknown, 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent 20 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — 

A universe of sky and snow ! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers 25 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 

Or garden-wall or belt of wood ; 

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 

A fenceless drift what once was road ; 

The bridle-post an old man sat 30 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; 

And even the long sweep, high aloof, 

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 

Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 35 



THE KITCHEN SCENE 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 
From sight beneath the smothering bank, 

35. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy, which inclines from 
the perpendicular a little more than six feet in eighty, is a cam- 
panile, or bell-tower, built of white marble, very beautiful, but 
so famous for its singular deflection from perpendicularity as 
to be known almost wholly as a curiosity. Opinions differ as to 
the leaning being the result of accident or design, but the better 
judgment makes it an effect of the character of the soil on which 
the town is built. The Cathedral to which it belongs has suffered 
80 much from a similar cause that there is not a vertical line in it 



58 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

We piled with care our nightly stack 5 

Of wood against the chimney-back, — 

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 

And on its top the stout back-stick ; 

The knotty forestick laid apart, 

And filled between with curious art 10 

The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 

We watched the first red blaze appear, 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 15 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became, 

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 20 

The crane and pendent trammels showed, 

The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed ; 

While childish fancy, prompt to tell 

The meaning of the miracle, 

Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the tree, 25 

Whenjire outdoors burns merrily, 

There the witches are making tea." 

The moon above the eastern wood 

Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 

Transfigured in the silver flood, 30 

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 

Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 

Took shadow, or the sombre green 

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 

Against the whiteness of their back. 35 

For such a world and such a night 



FOURTH YEAR 59 

Most fitting that unwarming light, 
Which only seemed where'er it fell 
To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 40 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about* 

Content to let the north-wind roar 

In baffled rage at pane and door, 

While the red logs before us beat 

The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 45 

And ever, when a louder blast 

Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 

The merrier up its roaring draught 

The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 

The house-dog on his paws outspread 50 

Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 

And, for the winter fireside meet, 

Between the andirons' straddling feet, 55 

The mug of cider simmered slow, 

The apples sputtered in a row, 

And, close at hand, the basket stood, 

With nuts from brown October's wood. 

THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S-NEST 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

Once the Emperor Charles of Spain, 
With his swarthy, grave commanders, 

I forget in what campaign, 

Long besieged, in mud and rain, 

Some old frontier town of Flanders. 5 



60 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Up and down the dreary camp, 
In great boots of Spanish leather, 

Striding with a measured tramp, 

These Hidalgos, dull and damp, 

Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather. 10 

Thus as to and fro they went, 

Over upland and through hollow, 

Giving their impatience vent, 

Perched upon the Emperor's tent, 

In her nest, they spied a swallow. 15 

Yes, it was a swallow's nest, 

Built of clay and hair of horses, 
Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest, 
Found on hedge-rows east and west, 

After skirmish of the forces. 20 



Then an old Hidalgo said, 

As he twirled his gray mustachio, 
" Sure this swallow overhead 

Thinks the Emperor's tent a shed, 

And the Emperor but a Macho ! " 25 

Hearing his imperial name 

Coupled with those words of malice, 

Half in anger, half in shame, 

Forth the great campaigner came 

Slowly from his canvas palace. 30 

25. Macho. Pronounced Macho. It signifies in Spanish a 
mule. 



FOURTH YEAR 61 

14 Let no hand the bird molest," 

Said he solemnly, " nor hurt her ! * 
Adding then, by way of jest, 

u Golondrina is my guest, 

'T is the wife of some deserter ! " 35 

Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft, 

Through the camp was spread the rumor, 

And the soldiers, as they quaffed 

Flemish beer at dinner, laughed 

At the Emperor's pleasant humor, 40 

So unharmed and unafraid 

Sat the swallow still and brooded, 
Till the constant cannonade 
Through the walls a breach had made, 

And the siege was thus concluded. 45 

Then the army, elsewhere bent, 

Struck its tents as if disbanding, 
Only not the Emperor's tent, ' 
For he ordered, ere he went, 

Very curtly, " Leave it standing ! " 50 

So it stood there all alone, 

Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, 

Till the brood was fledged and flown 

Singing o'er those walls of stone 

Which the cannon-shot had shattered. 55 

34. Golondrina, the feminine form of golondrino, a swallow^ 
and also a jocose name for a deserter. 



62 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 
SIR PATRICK SPENS 

AN OLD BALLAD 

The king sits in Dunfermline toun, 
Drinking the blude-red wine : 
44 Oh, whare will I get a skeely skipper 
To sail this new ship of mine ? " 

Oh, up and spake an eldern knight, 5 

Sat at the king's right knee, 
44 Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor 
That ever sailed the sea." 

Our king has written a braid letter, 

And sealed it with his hand, 10 

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, 
Was walking on the strand. 

44 To Noroway, to Noroway, 

To Noroway o'er the f aem ; 
The king's daughter of Noroway, 15 

'T is thou maun bring her hame." 

The first word that Sir Patrick read, 

Sae loud, loud laughed he ; 
The neist word that Sir Patrick read, 

The tear blinded his e'e. 20 

44 Oh wha is this has done this deed, 
And tauld the king o' me, 



FOURTH YEAR 63 

To send us out, at this time of the year, 
To sail upon the sea ? " 

44 Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, 
Our ship must sail the faem ; 26 

The King's daughter of Noroway, 
" 'T is we must fetch her hame." 

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn, 
Wi' a' the speed they may ; 30 

And they hae landed in Noroway 
Upon a Wedensday. 

They hadna been a week, a week 

In Noroway but twae, 
When that the lords o' Noroway 35 

Began aloud to say : 

44 Ye Scottishmen spend a' our king's gowd, 

And a' our queenis fee." 
44 Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud ! 

Fu' loud I hear ye lie ! 40 

44 For I hae brought as much white monie 
As gane my men and me, 
And I hae brought a half-f ou' o' gude red gowd 
Out o'er the sea wi ' me. 

44 Make ready, make ready, my merry men a' ! 

Our gude ship sails the morn." 46 

44 Now ever alake, my master dear, 

I fear a deadly storm I 



64 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

w I saw the new moon, late yestreen, 

Wi' the auld moon in her arm ; 50 

And if we gang to sea, master, 
I fear we '11 come to harm." 

They hadna sailed a league, a league, 

A league but barely three, 
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew 
loud, 55 

And gurly grew the sea. 

The ankers brak, and the top-masts lap, 

It was sic a deadly storm ; 
And the waves cam' o'er the broken ship 

Till a' her sides were torn. 60 

4 Oh, where will I get a gude sailor, 
To take my helm in hand, 
Till I get up to the tall top-mast, 
To see if I can spy land ? " 

' Oh here am I, a sailor gude, 65 

To take the helm in hand, 
Till ye get up to the tall top-mast : 
But I fear you '11 ne'er spy land." 

He hadna gane a step, a step, 

A step but barely ane, 70 

When a bout flew out of our goodly ship, 

And the sale sea it came in. 

1 Gae, fetch a web o' the silken claith. 
Another o' the twine, 



FOURTH YEAR 65 

And wap them into our ship's side, 75 

And letna the sea came in." 

Oh, laith, laith were our gude Scots lords 

To wet their cork heeled shoon ! 
But lang ere a' the play was played 

They wat their hats aboon. 80 

And mony was the feather-bed 

That floated on the faem, 
And mony was the gude lord's son 

That never mair came hame. 

The ladyes wrang their fingers white, 85 

The maidens tore their hair ; 
A' for the sake of their true loves, 

For them they '11 see na mair. 

Oh, lang, lang may the ladyes sit, 
Wi' their fans into their hand, 90 

Before they see Sir Patrick Spens 
Come sailing to the strand. 

And lang, lang may the maidens sit, 
Wi' the goud kaims in their hair, 

A' waiting for their ain dear loves, 95 

For them they '11 see na mair. 

Oh, forty miles off Aberdour, 

'T is fifty fathoms deep, 
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, 

Wi' the Scots lords at his feet. 100 



66 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 



WRITTEN IN MARCH 

While resting on the bridge at the foot of Brother's Water. 
William Wordsworth 

The Cock is crowing, 

The stream is flowing, 

The small birds twitter, 

The lake doth glitter, 
The green field sleeps in the sun ; 5 

The oldest and youngest 

Are at work with the strongest ; 

The cattle are grazing, 

Their heads never raising ; 
There are forty feeding like one ! 10 

Like an army defeated 

The snow hath retreated, 

And now doth fare ill 

On the top of the bare hill ; 
The ploughboy is whooping — anon — anon : 15 

There 's joy in the mountains ; 

There 's life in the fountains ; 

Small clouds are sailing, 

Blue sky prevailing ; 
The rain is over and gone ! 20 



FOURTH YEAR 67 

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
Robert Browning 



Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick, 
By famous Hanover city ; 

The river Weser, deep and wide, 

Washes its wall on the southern side ; 

A pleasanter spot you never spied ; 5 

But when begins my ditty, 

Almost five hundred years ago, 

To see the townsfolk suffer so 
From vermin, was a pity. 

II 

Rats! 10 

They fought the dogs and killed the cats, 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles, 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 15 

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women's chats 

By drowning their speaking 

With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 

ill 

At last the people in a body 

To the Town Hall came flocking : 



68 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" 'T is clear," cried they, " our Mayor's a noddy •, 

And as for our Corporation — shocking 
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 25 

For dolts who can't or won't determine 
What 's best to rid us of our vermin ! 
You hope, because you 're old and obese, 
To find in the furry civic robe ease ? 
Rouse up, sirs ! Give your brains a racking 30 

To find the remedy we 're lacking, 
Or, sure as fate, we '11 send you packing ! " 
At this the Mayor and Corporation 
Quaked with a mighty consternation. 



IV 

An hour they sat in council ; 35 

At length the Mayor broke silence : 
" For a guilder I 'd my ermine gown sell, 

I wish I were a mile hence ! 
It 's easy to bid one rack one's brain — 
I 'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 

I 've scratched it so, and all in vain. 
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap ! " 
Just as he said this, what should hap 
At the chamber-door but a gentle tap ? 
" Bless us," cried the Mayor, " what 's that ? " 45 

(With the Corporation as he sat, 
Looking little though wondrous fat ; 
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister 
Than a too-long-opened oyster, 

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 

For a plate of turtle green and glutinous) 
" Only a scraping of shoes on the mat ? 



FOURTH YEAR 69 



Anything like the sound of a rat 
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " 



" Come in ! " the Mayor cried, looking bigger : 55 

And in did come the strangest figure ! 

His queer long coat from heel to head 

Was half of yellow and half of red, 

And he himself was tall and thin, 

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, 

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, 

But lips where smiles went out and in ; 

There was no guessing his kith and kin : 

And nobody could enough admire 65 

The tall man and his quaint attire. 

Quoth one : " It 's as my great-grandsire, 

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone ! " 

VI 

He advanced to the council-table : 70 

And, " Please your honors," said he, " I 'm able, 

By means of a secret charm, to draw 

All creatures living beneath the sun, 

That creep or swim or fly or run, 

After me so as you never saw ! 75 

And I chiefly use my charm 

On creatures that do people harm, 

The mole and toad and newt and viper ; 

And people call me the Pied Piper." 

(And here they noticed round his neck 80 

A scarf of red and yellow stripe, 



70 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque ; 

And at the scarf's end hung a pipe ; 

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying 

As if impatient to be playing 85 

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 

Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 

" Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am, 

In Tartary I freed the Cham, 

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats ; 90 

I eased in Asia the Nizam 

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats : 

And as for what your brain bewilders, 

If I can rid your town of rats 

Will you give me a thousand guilders ? " 95 

" One ? fifty thousand ! " — was the exclamation 

Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 

VII 

Into the street the Piper stept, 

Smiling first a little smile, 
As if he knew what magic slept 100 

In his quiet pipe the while ; 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled ; 105 

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered ; 
And the muttering grew to a grumbling ; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; 

89. The Great Cham or Khan of Tartary was a figure made 
familiar to Europe in the Pied Piper's day by Marco Polo, the 
Venetian traveller. 



FOURTH YEAR 71 

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 110 
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 115 

Families by tens and dozens, 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped advancing, 
And step for step they followed dancing, 120 

Until they came to the river Weser, 
Wherein all plunged and perished ! 
— Save one who, stout as Julius Caesar, 
Swam across and lived to carry 

(As he, the manuscript he cherished) 125 

To Eat-land home his commentary : 
Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 
And putting apples, wondrous ripe, 
Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, 
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 
And a drawing the corks of train-oil flasks, 
And a breaking the hoops of butter casks : 
And it seemed as if a voice 135 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 
Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice ! 
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery ! 
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, 
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon ! ' 140 

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, 
Already staved, like a great sun shone 



72 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Glorious scarce an inch before me, 

Just as methought it said, ' Come, bore me ! ' 

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 145 

VIII 

You should have heard the Hamelin people 

Hinging the bells till they rocked the steeple. 

u Go," cried the Mayor, " and get long poles, 

Poke out the nests and block up the holes! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 

And leave in our town not even a trace 

Of the rats ! " — when suddenly, up the face 

Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 

With a, " First, if you please, my thousand guilders ! " 

IX 

A thousand guilders ! The Mayor looked blue ; 155 

So did the Corporation too. 

For council dinners made rare havoc 

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; 

And half the money would replenish 

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gypsy coat of red and yellow ! 

" Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, 

" Our business was done at the river's brink ; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 165 

And what 's dead can't come to life, I think. 

So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something for drink, 

And a matter of money to put in your poke ; 

But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 



FOURTH YEAR 73 

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. 
A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty ! " 



The Piper's face fell, and he cried, 

" No trifling ! I can't wait, beside ! 175 

I 've promised to visit by dinner time 

Bagdat, and accept the prime 

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he 's rich in, 

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor : 180 

With him I proved no bargain-driver, 

With you, don't think I '11 bate a stiver ! 

And folks who put me in a passion 

May find me pipe after another fashion." 

XI 

" How ? " cried the Mayor, " d' ye think I brook 185 

Being worse treated than a Cook ? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 

You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, 

Blow your pipe there till you burst ! " 190 

XII 

Once more he stept into the street, 

And to his lips again 
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane ; 

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 195 

Never gave the enraptured air) 
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling ; 



74 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 
Little hands clapping and little tongues chatter- 
ing, 200 
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scatter- 
ing, 
Out came the children running. 
All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 205 
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

XIII 

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 

As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 

Unable to move a step, or cry 210 

To the children merrily skipping by, 

— Could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. 

But how the Mayor was on the rack, 

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 215 

As the Piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 

And after him the children pressed ; 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

" He never can cross that mighty top ! 

He 's forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop ! " 225 

When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side, 

A wondrous portal opened wide, 



FOURTH YEAR 75 

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 

And the Piper advanced and the children followed, 

And when all were in to the very last, 230 

The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 

Did I say, all ? No ! One was lame, 

And could not dance the whole of the way ; 

And in after years, if you would blame 

His sadness, he was used to say, — 235 

11 It 's dull in our town since my playmates left ! 

I can't forget that I 'm bereft 

Of all the pleasant sights they see, 

Which the Piper also promised me. 

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 

Joining the town and just at hand, 

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, 

And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 

And everything was strange and new ; 

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 245 

And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 

And honey-bees had lost their stings, 

And horses were born with eagles' wings : 

And just as I became assured 

My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 

The music stopped and I stood still, 

And found myself outside the hill, 

Left alone against my will, 

To go now limping as before, 

And never hear of that country more ! " 255 

XIV 

Alas, alas ! for Hamelin ! 

There came into many a burgher's pate 
A text which says that heaven's gate 



76 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 

The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South, 
To offer the Piper by word of mouth, 

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
Silver and gold to his heart's content, 
If he 'd only return the way he went, 265 

And bring the children behind him. 
But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor, 
And Piper and dancers were gone forever, 
They made a decree that lawyers never 

Should think their records dated duly 270 

If, after the day of the month and year, 
These words did not as well appear, 
" And so long after what happened here 

On the Twenty-second of July, 
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six : " 275 

And the better in memory to fix 
The place of the children's last retreat, 
They called it the Pied Piper's Street — 
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 
Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 

To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; 
But opposite the place of the cavern 

They wrote the story on a column, 
And on the great church-window painted 285 

The same, to make the world acquainted 

275. So Verstegan ; but another writer, seventy years later, 
Nathaniel Wanley, in his The Wonders of the Little World, is 
equally exact in giving another date, June 26, 1284. Howell, 
writing hi 1647, says loosely, "a matter of two hundred and 
fifty yeers since." 



FOURTH YEAR 11 

How their children were stolen away, 

And there it stands to this very day. 

And I must not omit to say 

That in Transylvania there 's a tribe 290 

Of alien people who ascribe 

The outlandish ways and dress 

On which their neighbors lay such stress, 

To their fathers and mothers having risen 

Out of some subterraneous prison 295 

Into which they were trepanned 

Long time ago in a mighty band 

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, 

But how or why, they don't understand. 

XV 

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers ! 
And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from 

mice, 
If we 've promised them aught, let us keep our 

promise ! 



THE SANDPIPER 

Celia Thaxter 



Across the lonely beach we flit, 

One little sandpiper and I, 
And fast I gather, bit by bit, 

The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry f 



78 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

The wild waves reach their hands for it, 5 

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, 

As up and down the beach we flit, 
One little sandpiper and I. 

Above our heads the sullen clouds 

Scud, black and swift, across the sky \ 10 

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds 

Stand out the white lighthouses high. 
Almost as far as eye can reach 

I see the close-reefed vessels fly, 
As fast we flit along the beach, 15 

One little sandpiper and I. 

I watch him as he skims along, 

Uttering his sweet and mournful cry ; 
He starts not at my fitful song, 

Nor flash of fluttering drapery. 20 

He has no thought of any wrong, 

He scans me with a fearless eye ; 
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, 

The little sandpiper and I. 

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night, 25 

When the loosed storm breaks furiously ? 
My driftwood fire will burn so bright ! 

To what warm shelter canst thou fly? 
I do not fear for thee, though wroth 

The tempest rushes through the sky ; 30 

For are we not God's children both, 

Thou, little sandpiper, and I ? 



FOURTH YEAR 79 

THE BLUEBIRD 

Eben Eugene Rexford 

Listen a moment, I pray you ; what was that sound 

that I heard ? 
Wind in the budding branches, the ripple of brooks, or 

a bird ? 
Hear it again, above us ! and see a flutter of wings ! 
The bluebird knows it is April, and soars toward the 

sun and sings. 
Never the song of the robin could make my heart so 

glad ; 5 

When I hear the bluebird singing in spring, I forget 

to be sad. 

Hear it ! a ripple of music ! sunshine changed into song ! 
It sets me thinking of summer when the days and 

their dreams are long. 
Winged lute that we call a bluebird, you blend in a 

silver strain 
The sound of the laughing water, the patter of spring's 

sweet rain. 10 

The voice of the winds, the sunshine, and fragrance of 

blossoming things, 
Ah ! you are an April poem, that God has dowered 

with wings ! 



80 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

SONG — THE OWL 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

I 

When cats run home and light is come, 

And dew is cold upon the ground, 
And the far-off stream is dumb, 
And the whirring sail goes round, 
And the whirring sail goes round ; 5 

Alone and warming his five wits, 
The white owl in the belfry sits, 

II 

When merry milkmaids click the latch, 
And rarely smells the new-mown hay, 
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch 10 
Twice or thrice his roundelay, 
Twice or thrice his roundelay ; 
Alone and warming his five wits, 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 



FIFTH YEAR 



BARBARA FRIETCHIE 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

" This poem," says Mr. Whittier, " was written in strict conformity 
to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trust- 
worthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of con- 
flicting testimony, and the story was probably incorrect in some of its 
details. It is admitted by all that Barbara Frietchie was no myth, 
but a worthy and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a 
hater of the Slavery Rebellion, holding her Union flag sacred and 
keeping it with her Bible ; that when the Confederates halted before 
her house, and entered her dooryard, she denounced them in vigorous 
language, shook her cane in their faces, and drove them out ; and 
when General Burnside's troops followed close upon Jackson's, she 
waved her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May Quantrell, a 
brave and loyal lady in another part of the city, did wave her flag in 
sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has been a blend- 
ing of the two incidents." 

Up from the meadows rich with corn, 
Clear in the cool September morn, 

The clustered spires of Frederick stand 
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 

Round about them orchards sweep, 5 

Apple and peach tree fruited deep, 

Fair as the garden of the Lord 

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, 



82 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall 

When Lee marched over the mountain-wall ; 10 

Over the mountains winding down, 
Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty flags with their silver stars, 
Forty flags with their crimson bars, 

Flapped in the morning wind : the sun 15 

Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, 
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten ; 

Bravest of all in Frederick town, 

She took up the flag the men hauled down ^ 20 

In her attic window the staff she set, 
To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

Under his slouched hat left and right 25 

He glanced ; the old flag met his sight. 

" Halt ! " — the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
" Fire ! " — out blazed the rifle-blast. 

It shivered the window, pane and sash ; 

It rent the banner with seam and gash. 30 



FIFTH YEAR 83 

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. 

She leaned far out on the window-sill, 
And shook it forth with a royal will. 

* Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, 35 

But spare your country's flag," she said. 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, 
Over the face of the leader came ; 

The nobler nature within him stirred 

To life at that woman's deed and word ; 40 

'•' Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
Dies like a dog ! March on ! " he said. 

All day long through Frederick street 
Sounded the tread of marching feet : 

All day long that free flag tost 45 

Over the heads of the rebel host. 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell 

On the loyal winds that loved it well ; 

And through the hill-gaps sunset light 

Shone over it with a warm good-night. 50 

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, 

And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. 



84 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Honor to her ! and let a tear 

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. 

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, 55 

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 

Peace and order and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light and law ; 

And ever the stars above look down 

On thy stars below in Frederick town ! 60 



AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE 
Alice Cary 

Oh, good painter, tell me true, 

Has your hand the cunning to draw 
Shapes of things that you never saw ? 

Aye? Well, here is an order for you. 

Woods and corn fields, a little brown, — 5 

The picture must not be over-bright, — 
Yet all in the golden and gracious light 
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. 
Alway and alway, night and morn, 
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn 10 

Lying between them, not quite sere, 
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, 
When the wind can hardly find breathing- room 

Under their tassels, — cattle near, 
Biting shorter the short green grass, 15 

And a hedge of sumach and sassafras. 



FIFTH YEAR 85 

With bluebirds twittering all around, — 
(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound !) — 

These, and the house where I was born, 
Low and little, and black and old, 20 

With children, many as it can hold, 
All at the windows, open wide, — 
Heads and shoulders clear outside, 
And fair young faces all ablush : 

Perhaps you may have seen, some day, 25 

Roses crowding the self-same way, 
Out of a wilding, wayside bush. 

Listen closer. When you have done 

With woods and corn fields and grazing herds, 

A lady, the loveliest ever the sun 30 

Looked down upon you must paint for me : 
Oh, if I only could make you see 

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, 
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace. 
The woman's soul, and the angel's face 35 

That are beaming on me all the while, 
I need not speak these foolish words : 

Yet one word tells you all I would say, — 
She is my mother : you will agree 

That all the rest may be thrown away. 40 

Two little urchins at her knee 
You must paint, sir : one like me, — 
The other with a clearer brow, 
And the light of his adventurous eyes 
Flashing with boldest enterprise : 45 

At ten years old he went to sea, — 

God knoweth if he be living now, — 



86 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

He sailed in the good ship Commodore^ 
Nobody ever crossed her track 
To bring us news, and she never came back. 50 

Ah, it is twenty long years and more 
Since that old ship went out of the bay 

With my great-hearted brother on her deck : 

I watched him till he shrank to a speck, 
And his face was toward me all the way. 55 

Bright his hair was, a golden brown, 

The time we stood at our mother's knee : 
That beauteous head, if it did go down, 

Carried sunshine into the sea ! 

Out in the fields one summer night 60 

We were together, half afraid 

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade 
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far, — 
Loitering till after the low little light 

Of the candle shone through the open door, 65 
And over the hay-stack's pointed top, 
All of a tremble and ready to drop, 

The first half-hour, the great yellow star, 

That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, 
Had often and often watched to see 70 

Propped and held in its place in the skies 
By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, 

Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew, — 
Dead at the top, — just one branch full 
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, 75 

From which it tenderly shook the dew 
Over our heads, when we came to play 
In its hand-breadth of shadow, day after day. 

Afraid to go home, sir ; for one of us bore 



FIFTH YEAR 87 

A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs, — 80 

The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, 

Not so big as a straw of wheat : 

The berries we gave her she would n't eat, 

But cried and cried, till we held her bill, 

So slim and shining, to keep her still. 85 

At last we stood at our mother's knee. 

Do you think, sir, if you try, 

You can paint the look of a lie ? 

If you can, pray have the grace 

To put it solely in the face 90 

Of the urchin that is likest me : 

I think 't was solely mine, indeed : 

But that 's no matter, — paint it so ; 

The eyes of our mother — (take good heed) — 
Looking not on the nestful of eggs, 95 

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, 
But straight through our faces down to our lies, 
And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise ! 

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as 
though 

A sharp blade struck through it. 

You, sir, know 100 
That you on the canvas are to repeat 
Things that are fairest, things most sweet, — 
Woods and corn fields and mulberry-tree, -— 
The mother, — the lads, with their bird, at her knee : 

But, oh, that look of reproachful woe ! 105 

High as the heavens your name I '11 shout, 
tf you paint me the picture, and leave that out. 



88 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

THE FOUNTAIN 

James Russell Loweix 

Into the sunshine, 

Full of the light, 
Leaping and flashing 

From morn till night ; 

Into the moonlight, 5 

Whiter than snow, 
Waving so flower-like 

When the winds blow ; 

Into the starlight 

Rushing in spray, 10 

Happy at midnight, 

Happy by day ; 

Ever in motion, 

Blithesome and cheery, 
Still climbing heavenward, 15 

Never aweary ; 

Glad of all weathers, 

Still seeming best, 
Upward or downward, 

Motion thy rest ; 20 

Full of a nature 

Nothing can tame, 
Changed every moment, 

Ever the same ; 



FIFTH YEAR 


89 


Ceaseless aspiring, 


25 


Ceaseless content, 




Darkness or sunshine 




Thy element ; 




Glorious fountain, 




Let my heart be 


30 


Fresh, changeful, constant, 




Upward, like thee ! 





SHERIDAN'S RIDE 

Thomas Buchanan Read 

Up from the South at break of day, 
Bringing from Winchester fresh dismay, 
The affrighted air with a shudder bore, 
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, 
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, 5 
Telling the battle was on once more, 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

And wider still those billows of war 

Thundered along the horizon's bar ; 

And louder yet into Winchester rolled 10 

The roar of that red sea uncontrolled, 

Making the blood of the listener cold, 

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, 

And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

But there is a road from Winchester town, 15 

A good broad highway leading down ; 

And there, through the flush of the morning light, 



90 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

A steed as black as the steeds of night 

Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight, 

As if he knew the terrible need ; 20 

He stretched away with the utmost speed ; 

Hills rose and fell ; but his heart was gay, 

With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering South, 
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth ; 25 
Or the tail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, 
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. 
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master 
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, 
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ; 30 

Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, 
With Sheridan only ten miles away. 

Under his spurning feet the road 

Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed, 

And the landscape flowed away behind 35 

Like an ocean flying before the wind, 

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, 

Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire. 

But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire ; 

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 40 

With Sheridan only five miles away. 

The first that the General saw were the groups 
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops, 
What was done ? what to do ? a glance told him both. 
Then striking his spurs, with a terrible oath, 45 

He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas, 
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, 
because 



FIFTH YEAR 91 

The sight of the master compelled it to pause. 
With foam and with dust, the black charger was 

gray; 
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play, 50 
He seemed to the whole great army to say, 
* I have brought you Sheridan all the way 
From Winchester, down to save the day ! " 

Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! 55 

And when their statues are placed on high, 
Under the dome of the Union sky, 
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame, 
There with the glorious General's name, 
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright, 60 

" Here is the steed that saved the day, 
By carrying Sheridan into the fight, 
From Winchester, twenty miles away ! " 



THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS 
IN NEW ENGLAND 

Felicia D. Hemans 

The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rockbound coast, 

And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tossed. 

And the heavy night hung dark 5 

The hills and water o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 



92 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Not as the conqueror comes. 

They, the true-hearted, came ; 10 

Not with the roll of the stirring drums, 

And the trumpet that sings of fame. 

Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear ; — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 15 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard, and the sea : 

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
To the anthem of the free ! 20 

The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white wave's foam : 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared, — 

This was their welcome home ! 

There were men with hoary hair 25 

Amidst that pilgrim band : — 
Why had they come to wither there, 

Away from their childhood's land? 

There was woman's fearless eye, 

Lit by her deep love's truth ; 30 

There was manhood's brow serenely high, 

And the fiery heart of youth. 

What sought they thus afar ? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ? 35 

They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 



^ 






^ 







MOA^sjur^Vl .^^r^P, 



FIFTH YEAR 93 

Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod : 
They have left unstained what there they found, — 

Freedom to worship God. 40 

THE ONE HUNDREDTH PSALM 

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 

Serve the Lord with gladness : come before his pre- 
sence with singing. 

Know ye that the Lord he is God : it is he that 
hath made us, and not we ourselves ; we are his people, 
and the sheep of his pasture. 

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his 
courts with praise : be thankful unto him, and bless 
his name. 

For the Lord is good : his mercy is everlasting ; and 
his truth endureth to all generations. 

CHRISTMAS BELLS 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day 
Their old, familiar carols play, 

And wild and sweet 

The words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 5 

And thought how, as the day had come, 
The belfries of all Christendom 

Had rolled along 

The unbroken song 
Of peace on earth, good- will to men ! 10 



94 P0EM1S FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Till, ringing, singing on its way, 

The world revolved from night to day, 

A voice, a chime, 

A chant sublime 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 15 

Then from each black, accursed mouth 
The cannon thundered in the South, 

And with the sound 

The carols drowned 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 20 

It was as if an earthquake rent 
The hearth-stones of a continent, 

And made forlorn 

The households born 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 25 

And in despair I bowed my head ; 
i4 There is no peace on earth/' I said ; 
" For hate is strong, 
And mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good- will to men ! " 30 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep : 
M God is not dead ; nor doth he sleep ! 

The Wrong shall fail, 

The Right prevail, 
With peace on earth, good-will to men ! " 35 



FIFTH YEAR 95 

CHRISTMAS EVERYWHERE 

Phillips Brooks 

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night ! 
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine, 
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine, 
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white, 
Christmas where cornfields lie sunny and bright. 5 

Christmas where children are hopeful and gay, 
Christmas where old men are patient and gray, 
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight, 
Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight ; 
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night ! 10 

For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all ; 
No palace too great, and no cottage too small. 

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 



Half a league, half a league, 
Half a league onward, 
All in the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
" Forward the Light Brigade ! 

Charge for the guns ! " he said. 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 



96 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

II 
" Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
Was there a man dismay 'd ? 1.0 

Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had bluncler'd. 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die. 15 

Into the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 

in 
Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 20 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of hell 25 

Rode the six hundred. 

IV 

Flash'd all their sabres bare, 

Flash'd as they turn'd in air 

Sabring the gunners there, 

Charging an army, while 30 

All the world wonder'd. 
Plunged in the battery-smoke 
Right thro' the line they broke : 
Cossack and Russian 
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke 35 

Shatter'd and sunder'd. 



FIFTH YEAR 97 

Then they rode back, but not, 
Not the six hundred. 



Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 40 

Cannon behind them 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well 45 

Came thro' the jaws of Death, 
Back from the mouth of hell, 
All that was left of them, 

Left of six hundred. 

VI 

When can their glory fade ? 50 

O the wild charge they made ! 

All the world wonder'd. 
Honor the charge they made ! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 

Noble six hundred ! 55 



98 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Wllliam Cullen Bryant 

Written by request, when the funeral procession of the martyred 
President passed through the streets of New York. 

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, 

Gentle and merciful and just ! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 

The sword of power, a nation's trust ! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 5 

Amid the awe that hushes all, 
And speak the anguish of a land 

That shook with horror at thy fall. 

Thy task is done ; the bond are free : 

We bear thee to an honored grave, 10 

Whose proudest monument shall be 
The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Hath placed thee with the sons of light, 

Among the noble host of those 15 

Who perished in the cause of Right. 



FIFTH YEAR 99 

THE ARROW AND THE SONG 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

"October 16, 1845. Before church, wrote The Arrow and the Song. 
which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and 
glanced on to the paper with arrow's speed. Literally an improvisa- 
tion." — Diary of H. W. Longfellow. 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air, 5 

It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song ? 

Long, long afterwards, in an oak 

I found the arrow, still unbroke ; 10 

And the song, from beginning to end, 

I found again in the heart of a friend. 

THE MILLER OF THE DEE 

Charles Mackay 

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold, 

Beside the river Dee ; 
He worked and sang from morn till night, 

No lark more blithe than he ; 
And this the burden of his song 5 

Forever used to be, — 



100 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" I envy nobody — no, not I, 
And nobody envies me." 

" Thou 'rt wrong, my friend," said good King Hal ; 
" As wrong as wrong can be ; 10 

For could my heart be light as thine, 

I 'd gladly change with thee : 
And tell me now, what makes thee sing 

With voice so loud and free, 
While I am sad, though I am king, 15 

Beside the river Dee ? " 

The miller smiled and doffed his cap, 
" I earn my bread," quoth he ; 
" I love my wife, I love my friend, 

I love my children three ; 20 

I owe no penny I cannot pay ; 

I thank the river Dee, 
That turns the mill and grinds the corn 
To feed my babes and me." 

" Good friend," said Hal, and sighed the while, 25 
" Farewell, and happy be: 
But say no more, if thou'dst be true, 

That no one envies thee : 
Thy mealy cap is worth my crown ; 

Thy mill, my kingdom's fee ; 30 

Such men as thou are England's boast, 
O Miller of the Dee ! " 



FIFTH YEAR 101 



THE BELL OF ATM 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town 

Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown, 

One of those little places that have run 

Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun, 

And then sat down to rest, as if to say, 5 

" I climb no farther upward, come what may," — 

The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame, 

So many monarchs since have borne the name, 

Had a great bell hung in the market-place 

Beneath a roof, projecting some small space, 10 

By way of shelter from the sun and rain. 

Then rode he through the streets with all his train, 

And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long, 

Made proclamation, that whenever wrong 

Was done to any man, he should but ring 15 

The great bell in the square, and he, the King, 

Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon. 

Such was the proclamation of King John. 

How swift the happy days in Atri sped, 

What wrongs were righted, need not here be said. 20 

Suffice it that, as all things must decay, 

The hempen rope at length was worn away, 

Unravelled at the end, and, strand by strand, 

Loosened and wasted in the ringer's hand, 

Till one, who noted this in passing by, 25 

Mended the rope with braids of briony, 



102 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine 
Hung like a votive garland at a shrine. 

By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt 

A knight, with spur on heel and sword in belt, 30 

Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the woods, 

Who loved his falcons with their crimson hoods, 

Who loved his hounds and horses, and all sports 

And prodigalities of camps and courts ; — 

Loved, or had loved them ; for at last, grown old, 35 

His only passion was the love of gold. 

He sold his horses, sold his hawks and hounds, 
Rented his vineyards and his garden-grounds, 
Kept but one steed, his favorite steed of all, 
To starve and shiver in a naked stall, 40 

And day by day sat brooding in his chair, 
Devising plans how best to hoard and spare. 

At length he said : " What is the use or need 

To keep at my own cost this lazy steed, 

Eating his head off in my stables here, 45 

When rents are low and provender is dear? 

Let him go feed upon the public ways ; 

I want him only for the holidays." 

So the old steed was turned into the heat 

Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street ; 50 

And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn, 

Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and thorn. 

One afternoon, as in that sultry clime 

It is the custom in the summer time, 

With bolted doors and window-shutters closed, 53 



FIFTH YEAR 103 

The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed ; 

When suddenly upon their senses fell 

The loud alarum of the accusing bell ! 

The Syndic started from his deep repose, 

Turned on his couch, and listened, and then rose 60 

And donned his robes, and with reluctant pace 

Went panting forth into the market-place, 

Where the great bell upon its cross-beam swung 

Reiterating with persistent tongue, 

In half-articulate jargon, the old song : 65 

" Some one hath done a wrong, hath done a wrong ! " 

But ere he reached the belfry's light arcade 

He saw, or thought he saw, beneath its shade, 

No shape of human form of woman born, 

But a poor steed dejected and forlorn, 70 

Who with uplifted head and eager eye 

Was tugging at the vines of briony. 

" Domeneddio ! " cried the Syndic straight, 

" This is the Knight of Atri's steed of state ! 

He calls for justice, being sore destressed, 75 

And pleads his cause as loudly as the best." 

Meanwhile from street and lane a noisy crowd 

Had rolled together like a summer cloud, 

And told the story of the wretched beast 

In five-and-twenty different ways at least, 80 

With much gesticulation and appeal 

To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal. 

The Knight was called and questioned ; in reply 

Did not confess the fact, did not deny ; 

Treated the matter as a pleasant jest, 85 

And set at naught the Syndic and the rest, 



104 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Maintaining, in an angry undertone, 

That he should do what pleased him with his own. 

And thereupon the Syndic gravely read 

The proclamation of the King ; then said : 90 

" Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and gay, 

But cometh back on foot, and begs its way ; 

Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds, 

Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds ! 

These are familiar proverbs ; but I fear 95 

They never yet have reached your knightly ear. 

What fair renown, what honor, what repute 

Can come to you from starving this poor brute ? 

He who serves well and speaks not, merits more 

Than they who clamor loudest at the door. 100 

Therefore the law decrees that as this steed 

Served you in youth, henceforth you shall take heed 

To comfort his old age, and to provide 

Shelter in stall, and food and field beside." 

The Knight withdrew abashed ; the people all 105 

Led home the steed in triumph to his stall. 

The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee, 

And cried aloud : " Right well it please th me ! 

Church-bells at best but ring us to the door ; 

But go not in to mass ; my bell doth more : 110 

It cometh into court and pleads the cause 

Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws ; 

And this shall make, in every Christian clime, 

The Bell of Atri famous for all time." 



FIFTH YEAR 105 

PLANT A TREE 

Lucy Larcom 

He who plants a tree, 
Plants a hope, 
flootlets up through fibres blindly grope ; 
Leaves unfold into horizons free. 

So man's life must climb 5 

From the clods of time 

Unto heavens sublime. 
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree, 
What the glory of thy boughs shall be ? 

He who plants a tree, 10 

Plants a joy ; 
Plants a comfort that will never cloy ; 
Every day a fresh reality, 

Beautiful and strong, 

To whose shelter throng 15 

Creatures blithe with song. 
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree, 
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee ! 

He who plants a tree, — 

He plants peace. 20 

Under its green curtains jargons cease. 
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly ; 

Shadows soft with sleep 

Down tired eyelids creep, 

Balm of slumber deep. 25 

Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree, 
Of the benediction thou shalt be. 



106 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

He who plants a tree, — 
He plants youth ; 
Vigor won for centuries in sooth ; 30 

Life of time, that hints eternity ! 

Boughs their strength uprear ; 

New shoots, every year, 

On old growths appear : 
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree, 35 

Youth of soul is immortality. 

He who plants a tree, — 
He plants love ; 
Tents of coolness spreading out above 
Wayfarers, he may not live to see. 40 

Gifts that grow are best ; 

Hands that bless are blest $ 

Plant ! life does the rest ! 
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree, 
And his work its own reward shall be. 45 



SPRING 

(Translated from the French of Charles D'Orleans) 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Gentle Spring ! in sunshine clad, 

Well dost thou thy power display ! 
For Winter maketh the light heart sad, 

And thou, thou makest the sad heart gay. 
He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train, 5 

The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the rain ; 
Ajid they shrink away, and they flee in fear, 

When thy merry step draws near. 



FIFTH YEAR 107 

Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so old, 
Their beards of icicles and snow ; 10 

And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold, 
We must cower over the embers low ; 

And, snugly housed from the wind and weather, 

Mope like birds that are changing feather. 

But the storm retires, and the sky grows clear, 15 
When thy merry step draws near. 

Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky 
Wrap him round with a mantle of cloudy 

But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh ; 

Thou tearest away the mournful shroud, 20 

And the earth looks bright, and Winter surly, 

Who has toiled for naught both late and early, 

Is banished afar by the new-born year, 
When thy merry step draws near. 



SELECTION FROM MARMION 

Sir Walter Scott 
YOUNG LOCHINVAR 

Oh ! young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best ; 
And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none ; 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 5 

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stay'd not for brake and he stopped not for stone, 
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none ; 



108 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late : 10 

For a laggard in love and a dastard in war 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, 
Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: 
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his 
sword, — 15 

For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word, — 
" Oh ! come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ? " — 

" I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied ; 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide — 
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, 21 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." 

The bride kissed the goblet ; the knight took it up, 25 
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the 

cup. 
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, 
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, — 
" Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 31 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
While her mother did fret and her father did fume, 
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and 
plume ; 



FIFTH YEAR 109 

And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'T were better by 
far 35 

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochiu- 
var." 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
When they reached the hall door, and the charger 

stood near ; 
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 40 

" She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ; 
They '11 have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young 

Lochinvar. 

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby 

clan ; 
Forsters, Fenwieks, and Musgraves, they rode and 

they ran : 
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, 45 
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ? 



THE DAFFODILS 

William Wordsworth 

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils ; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 



110 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay : 10 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced ; but they 

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee : 

A poet could not but be gay, 15 

In such a jocund company : 

I gazed, — and gazed, — but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought : 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 20 

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude ; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils. 



LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER 
Thomas Campbell 

A chieftain to the Highlands bound 
Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry ! 

And I '11 give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry ! " 

— " Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, 
This dark and stormy water ? " 



FIFTH YEAR 111 

— " Oh, I 'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter. 

" And fast before her father's men 

Three days we 've fled together, 10 

For should he find us in the glen, 
My blood would stain the heather. 

" His horsemen hard behind us ride, — 
Should they our steps discover, 
Then who will cheer my bonny bride 15 

When they have slain her lover ? " 

Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, 

" I '11 go, my chief, I 'm ready : 
It is not for your silver bright, 

But for your winsome lady : — 20 

" And by my word ! the bonny bird 
In danger shall not tarry ; 
So though the waves are raging white, 
I '11 row you o'er the ferry." 

By this the storm grew loud apace, 25 

The water- wraith was shrieking ; 
And in the scowl of heaven each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 

But still as wilder blew the wind, 

And as the night grew drearer 30 

Adown the glen rode armed men, 

Their trampling sounded nearer. 



112 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" O haste thee, haste ! " the lady cries, 
" Though tempests round us gather ; 
I '11 meet the raging of the skies, 35 

But not an angry father ! " 

The boat has left a stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her, — 
When, oh, too strong for human hand ! 

The tempest gather'd o'er her. 40 

And still they row'd amidst the roar 

Of waters fast prevailing : 
Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore, — 

His wrath was changed to wailing. 

For, sore dismay'd, through storm and shade 45 

His child he did discover : — 
One lovely hand she stretch'd for aid, 

And one was round her lover. 

6 Come back ! come back ! " he cried in grief, 

" Across this stormy water, 50 

And I '11 forgive your Highland chief : — 
My daughter ! — O my daughter ! " 

'T was vain : the loud waves lash'd the shore, 

Return or aid preventing : 
The waters wild went o'er his child, 55 

And he was left lamenting. 



SIXTH YEAR 

THE GRAY SWAN 

Alice Cary 

u Oh ! tell me, sailor, tell me true, 
Is my little lad, my Elihu, 

A-sailing with your ship ? " 
The sailor's eyes were dim with dew, 
" Your little lad, your Elihu ? " 5 

He said with trembling lip, — 
« What little lad ? What ship ? " 

" What little lad ? as if there could be 
Another such a one as he ! 

What little lad, do you say ? 10 

Why, Elihu, that took to the sea 
The moment I put him off my knee ! 
It was just the other day 
The Gray Swan sailed away ! " 

" The other day ? " The sailor's eyes 15 

Stood open with a great surprise : — 

" The other day ? — the Swan ? " 
His heart began in his throat to rise. 
" Ay, ay, sir ! here in the cupboard lies 

The jacket he had on ! " — 20 

" And so your lad is gone ? " 



114 POEMS FOE THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

44 Gone with the Swan" " And did she stand 
With her anchor clutching hold of the sand, 
. For a month, and never stir ? " 
" Why, to be sure ! I 've seen from the land, 25 
Like a lover kissing his lady's hand, 
The wild sea kissing her, — 
A sight to remember, sir ! " 

6 But, my good mother, do you know 

All this was twenty years ago ? 30 

I stood on the Gray Sivarfs deck, 

And to that lad I saw you throw, 

Taking it off, as it might be, so ! 

The kerchief from your neck." — 

" Ay, and he '11 bring it back ! " 35 

4 And did the little lawless lad, 
That has made you sick and made you sad, 
Sail with the Gray Swarfs crew ? " 
u Lawless ! The man is going mad ! 
The best boy ever mother had : — 40 

Be sure he sailed with the crew ! 
What would you have him do ? " 

" And he has never written line, 
Nor sent you word, nor made you sign, 

To say he was alive ? " 45 

64 Hold ! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine ; 
Besides, he may be in the brine ; 

And could he write from the grave ? 
Tut, man ! What would you have ? " 

44 Gone, twenty years, — a long, long cruise, 50 
'T was wicked thus your love to abuse ! 



SIXTH YEAR 115 

But if the lad still live, 
And come back home, think you, you can 
Forgive him ? " — " Miserable man ! 

You 're mad as the sea, — you rave — 55 

What have I to forgive ? " 

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue, 
And from within his bosom drew 

The kerchief. She was wild. 
" O God, my Father ! is it true ? 60 

My little lad, my Elihu ! 

My blessed boy, my child ! 

My dead, my living child ! " 



RAIN IN SUMMER 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

How beautiful is the rain ! 

After the dust and heat, 

In the broad and fiery street, 

In the narrow lane, 

How beautiful is the rain ! 5 

How it clatters along the roofs, 

Like the tramp of hoofs ! 

How it gushes and struggles out 

From the throat of the overflowing spout ! 

Across the window-pane 10 

It pours and pours ; 
And swift and wide, 
With a muddy tide, 



116 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Like a river down the gutter roars 

The rain, the welcome rain ! 15 

The sick man from his chamber looks 

At the twisted brooks ; 

He can feel the cool 

Breath of each little pool ; 

His fevered brain 20 

Grows calm again, 

And he breathes a blessing on the rain. 

From the neighboring school 

Come the boys, 

With more than their wonted noise 25 

And commotion ; 

And down the wet streets 

Sail their mimic fleets, 

Till the treacherous pool 

Ingulfs them in its whirling 30 

And turbulent ocean. 

In the country, on every side, 

Where far and wide, 

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide, 

Stretches the plain, 35 

To the dry grass and the drier grain 

How welcome is the rain ! 

In the furrowed land 

The toilsome and patient oxen stand : 

Lifting the yoke-encumbered head, 40 

With their dilated nostrils spread, 

They silently inhale 



SIXTH YEAR 117 

The clover-scented gale, 

And the vapors that arise 

From the well-watered and smoking soil. 45 

For this rest in the furrow after toil 

Their large and lustrous eyes 

Seem to thank the Lord, 

More than man's spoken word. 

Near at hand, 50 

From under the sheltering trees, 

The farmer sees 

His pastures, and his fields of grain, 

As they bend their tops 

To the numberless beating drops 55 

Of the incessant rain. 

He counts it as no sin 

That he sees therein 

Only his own thrift and gain. 

These, and far more than these, 60 

The Poet sees ! 

He can behold 

Aquarius old 

Walking the fenceless fields of air ; 

And from each ample fold 65 

Of the clouds about him rolled 

Scattering everywhere 

The showery rain, 

As the farmer scatters his grain. 

He can behold 70 

Things manifold 

That have not yet been wholly told, — • 



118 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Have not been wholly sung nor said. 

For his thought, that never stops, 

Follows the water-drops 75 

Down to the graves of the dead, 

Down through chasms and gulfs profound, 

To the dreary fountain-head 

Of lakes and rivers under ground ; 

And sees them, when the rain is done, 80 

On the bridge of colors seven 

Climbing up once more to heaven, 

Opposite the setting sun. 

Thus the Seer, 

With vision clear, 85 

Sees forms appear and disappear, 

In the perpetual round of strange, 

Mysterious change 

From birth to death, from death to birth, 

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth ; 90 

Till glimpses more sublime 

Of things, unseen before, 

Unto his wondering eyes reveal 

The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel 

Turning forevermore 95 

In the rapid and rushing river of Time. 



THE HARVEST MOON 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

It is the Harvest Moon ! On gilded vanes 
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests 
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests 



SIXTH YEAR 119 

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes 
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes 5 

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests ! 

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests ; 

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains ! 
All things are symbols : the external shows 

Of Nature have their image in the mind, 10 

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves ; 
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, 

Only the empty nests are left behind, 

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves 



MAIZE, THE NATION'S EMBLEM 

Celia Thaxtbb 

Upon a hundred thousand plains 

Its banners rustle in the breeze, 
O'er all the nation's wide domains 

From coast to coast betwixt the seas. 

It storms the hills and fills the vales, 5 

It marches like an army grand, 
The continent its presence hails, 

Its beauty brightens all the land. 

Far back through history's shadowy page 
It shines, a power of boundless good, .10 

The people's prop from age to age, 
The one unfailing wealth of food. 



120 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

God's gift to the New World's great need 
That helped to build the nation's strength, 

Up through beginnings rude to lead 15 

A higher race of men at length. 

How straight and tall and stately stand 
Its serried stalks upright and strong ! 

How nobly are its outlines planned, 

What grace and charm to it belong ! 20 

What splendor in its rustling leaves ! 

What richness in its close-set gold ! 
What largess in its clustered sheaves, 

New every year, though ages old ! 

America, from thy broad breast 25 

It sprang, beneficent and bright, 
Of all thy gifts from heaven the best, 

For the world's succor and delight. 

Then do it honor, give it praise ! 

A noble emblem should be ours ; — 30 

Upon thy fair shield set thy Maize, 

More glorious than a myriad flowers. 

And let thy States their garland bring, 
Each its own lovely blossom-sign, 

But leading all let Maize be king, 35 

Holding its place by right divine. 



THE SIXTH YEAR 121 



THE BUILDERS 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

All are architects of Fate, 

Working in these walls of Time ; 

Some with massive deeds and great, 
Some with ornaments of rhyme. 

Nothing useless is, or low ; 5 

Each thing in its place is best; 
And what seems but idle show 

Strengthens and supports the rest. 

For the structure that we raise, 

Time is with materials filled ; 10 

Our to-days and yesterdays 

Are the blocks with which we build. 



Truly shape and fashion these ; 

Leave no yawning gaps between ; 
Think not, because no man sees, 15 

Such things will remain unseen. 

In the elder days of Art, 

Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part ; 

For the Gods see everywhere. 20 



122 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Let us do our work as well, 
Both the unseen and the seen ; 

Make the house, where Gods may dwell, 
Beautiful, entire, and clean. 



Else our lives are incomplete, 25 

Standing in these walls of Time, 

Broken stairways, where the feet 
Stumble as they seek to climb. 

Build to-day, then, strong and sure, 

With a firm and ample base ; 30 

And ascending and secure 

Shall to-morrow find its place. 

Thus alone can we attain 

To those turrets, where the eye 
Sees the world as one vast plain, 35 

And one boundless reach of sky. 



SIXTH YEAR 123 

THE LEAK IN THE DIKE 

A STORY OF HOLLAND 
Phcebb Cary 

The good dame looked from her cottage 

At the close of the pleasant day, 
And cheerily called to her little son 

Outside the door at play : 
" Come, Peter, come ! I want you to go, 5 

While there is light to see, 
To the hut of the blind old man who lives 

Across the dike, for me ; 
And take these cakes I made for him — • 

They are hot and smoking yet ; 10 

You have time enough to go and come 

Before the sun is set." 

Then the good-wife turned to her labor 

Humming a simple song, 
And thought of her husband, working hard 15 

At the sluices all day long ; 
And set the turf a-blazing, 

And brought the coarse black bread ; 
That he might find a fire at night, 

And find the table spread. 20 

And Peter left the brother, 

With whom all day he had played, 
And the sister who had watched their sports 

In the willow's tender shade ; 
And told them they 'd see him back before 25 



124 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

They saw a star in sight, 
Though he would n't be afraid to go 

In the very darkest night ! 
For he was a brave, bright fellow, 

With eye and conscience clear ; 30 

He could do whatever a boy might do, 

And he had not learned to fear. 
Why, he would n't have robbed a bird's nest, 

Nor brought a stork to harm, 
Though never a law in Holland 35 

Had stood to stay his arm ! 

And now, with his face all glowing, 

And eyes as bright as the day 
With the thoughts of his pleasant errand, 

He trudged along the way ; 40 

And soon his joyous prattle 

Made glad a lonesome place — 
Alas ! if only the blind old man 

Could have seen that happy face ! 
Yet he somehow caught the brightness 45 

Which his voice and presence lent ; 
And he felt the sunshine come and go 

As Peter came and went. 

And now, as the day was sinking, 

And the winds began to rise, 50 

The mother looked from her door again, 

Shading her anxious eyes ; 
And saw the shadows deepen 

And birds to their homes come back, 
But never a sign of Peter 55 

Along the level track. 



SIXTH YEAR 125 

But she said : " He will come at morning, 

So I need not fret or grieve — 
Though it is n't like my boy at all 

To stay without my leave." 60 

But where was the child delaying ? 

On the homeward way was he, 
And across the dike while the sun was up 

An hour above the sea. 
He was stopping now to gather flowers, 65 

Now listening to the sound, 
As the angry waters dashed themselves 

Against their narrow bound. 
1 Ah ! well for us," said Peter, 

" That the gates are good and strong, 70 
And my father tends them carefully, 

Or they would not hold you long ! 
You're a wicked sea," said Peter; 

" I know why you fret and chafe ; 
You would like to spoil our lands and homes ; 75 

But our sluices keep you safe ! " 

But hark ! Through the noise of waters 

Comes a low, clear, trickling sound ; 
And the child's face pales with terror, 

And his blossoms drop to the ground. 80 
He is up the bank in a moment, 

And, stealing through the sand, 
He sees a stream not yet so large 

As his slender, childish hand. 
'Tis a leak in the dike/ He is but a boy, 85 

Unused to fearful scenes ; 
But, young as he is, he has learned to know, 



126 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

The dreadful thing that means. 
A leak in the dike ! The stoutest heart 

Grows faint that cry to hear, 90 

And the bravest man in all the land 

Turns white with mortal fear. 
For he knows the smallest leak may grow 

To a flood in a single night ; 
And he knows the strength of the cruel sea 95 

When loosed in its angry might. 

And the boy ! He has seen the danger, 

And, shouting a wild alarm, 
He forces back the weight of the sea 

With the strength of his single arm ! 100 
He listens for the joyful sound 

Of a footstep passing nigh ; 
And lays his ear to the ground, to catch 

The answer to his cry. 
And he hears the rough winds blowing, 105 

And the waters rise and fall, 
But never an answer comes to him, 

Save the echo of his call. 
He sees no hope, no succor, 

His feeble voice is lost ; 110 

Yet what shall he do but watch and wait, 

Though he perish at his post ! 

So, faintly calling and crying 

Till the sun is under the sea ; 
Crying and moaning till the stars 115 

Come out for company ; 
He thinks of his brother and sister, 

Asleep in their safe warm bed ; 



SIXTH YEAR 127 

He thinks of his father and mother, 

Of himself as dying — and dead ; 120 

And of how, when the night is over, 

They must come and find him at last : 
But he never thinks he can leave the place 

Where duty holds him fast. 

The good dame in the cottage 125 

Is up and astir with the light, 
For the thought of her little Peter 

Has been with her all night. 
And now she watches the pathway, 

As yester eve she had done ; 130 

But what does she see so strange and black 

Against the rising sun ? 
Her neighbors are bearing between them 

Something straight to her door ; 
Her child is coming home, but not 135 

As he ever came before ! 

" He is dead ! " she cries ; " my darling ! " 

And the startled father hears, 
And comes and looks the way she looks, 

And fears the thing she fears : 140 

Till a glad shout from the bearers 

Thrills the stricken man and wife — 
" Give thanks, for your son has saved our land, 

And God has saved his life ! " 
So, there in the morning sunshine 145 

They knelt about the boy ; 
And every head was bared and bent 

In tearful, reverent joy. 



128 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

? T is many a year since then ; but still, 

When the sea roars like a flood, • 150 

Their boys are taught what a boy can do 

Who is brave and true and good. 
For every man in that country 

Takes his son by the hand, 
And tells him of little Peter, 155 

Whose courage saved the land. 

They have many a valiant hero, 

Remembered through the years : 
But never one whose name so oft 

Is named with loving tears. 160 

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle, 

And told to the child on the knee, 
So long as the dikes of Holland 

Divide the land from the sea ! 



THE SONG OF THE CAMP 

Bayard Taylor 

" Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 
The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated guns of the camps allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

3. The chief feature of the Crimean War (1854-1855) was 
the siege of Sebastopol, a Russian town, with an important har- 
bor, on the Black Sea. The allied forces besieging it were those 
of England, France and Turkey. 



SIXTH YEAR 129 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff, 5 

Lay, grim and threatening, under ; 

And the tawny mound of the Malakoff 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. A guardsman said 

" We storm the forts to-morrow ; 10 

Sing while we may, another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery's side, 

Below the smoking cannon : 
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, 15 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, and not of fame ; 

Forgot was Britain's glory : 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang " Annie Laurie." 20 

Voice after voice caught up the song, 

Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, — 

Their battle-eve confession. 

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, 25 

But, as the song grew louder, 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 

5. The most powerful fortifications erected by the Russians 
for the defence of Sebastopol were on the Malakoff hill, and 
among them the one most prominent and threatening was the 
tower, called the great Redan. 



130 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 30 

While the Crimean valleys learned 
How English love remembers. 

And once again a fire of hell 

Rained on the Russian quarters, 
With scream of shot, and burst of shell, 35 

And bellowing of the mortars ! 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer, dumb and gory ; 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of " Annie Laurie." 40 

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 

Your truth and valor wearing : 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 

The loving are the daring. 



SIXTH YEAR 131 



CHRISTMASTIDE 

Richard Burton 

Christmas time is a time of cold, 

Of weathers bleak and of winds a-blow ; 

Never a flower — fold on fold 

Of grace and beauty — tops the snow 

Or breaks the black and bitter mold. 5 

And yet 't is warm — for the chill and gloom 
Glow r with love and with childhood's glee ; 

And yet 't is sweet — with the rich perfume 
Of sacrifice and of charity. 

Where are flowers more fair to see? 10 

Christmas tide, it is warm and sweet ; 
A whole world's heart at a Baby's feet ! 



132 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

CHRISTMAS 

IN MEMORIAM CVI 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 5 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 

For those that here we see no more ; 10j 

Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 

Ring in the nobler modes of life, I5*» 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times ; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 20* 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite ; 



SIXTH YEAR 133 

Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 25 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old, 

Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 30 

Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET 

John Keats 

Written December 30, 1816, on a challenge from Leigh Hunt, who 
printed both his and Keats' s sonnets in his paper, The Examiner. 

The poetry of earth is never dead : 

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 

Trom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead ; 

That is the Grasshopper's — he takes the lead 5 

In summer luxury, — he has never done 
With his delights ; for when tired out with fun, 

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 

The poetry of earth is ceasing never : 

On a lone winter evening, when the frost 10 

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills 

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 
And seems to one, in drowsiness half lost, 
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. 



134 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

SELECTIONS FROM SNOW-BOUND 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

THE MOTHER 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cocheco town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 5 

His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 
So rich and picturesque and free, 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways,) 10 

The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome to her home 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 15 

The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
The loon's weird laughter far away ; 20 

We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 25 

4. Dover in New Hampshire. 



SIXTH YEAR 135 

The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 

THE SISTERS 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Her evening task the stand beside ; 
A full, rich nature, free to trust, 
Truthful and almost sternly just, 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 5 

And make her generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a slight disguise 
The secret of self-sacrifice. 
O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 10 
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 
How many a poor one's blessing went 
With thee beneath the low green tent 
Whose curtain never outward swings ! 

As one who held herself a part 15 

Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 20 

Now bathed in the unfading green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms, 25 

Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
With me one little year ago : — 



136 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

The chill weight of the winter snow 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 30 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 
I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I see the violet-sprinkled sod 
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak, 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 35 

Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 
The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 
The air with sweetness ; all the hills 
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 40 
But still I wait with ear and eye 
For something gone which should be nigh, 
A loss in all familiar things, 
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 
And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 45 
Am I not richer than of old ? 

THE SCHOOLMASTER 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 

The master of the district school 

Held at the fire his favorite place. 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 5 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 10 

Born the wild Northern hills among, 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 



SIXTH YEAR 137 

By patient toil subsistence scant, 

Not competence and yet not want, 

He early gained the power to pay 15 

His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town ; 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach, 20 

Where all the droll experience found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round, 

The moonlit skater's keen delight, 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 

The rustic party, with its rough 25 

Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 

And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, 

His winter task a pastime made. 

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 

He tuned his merry violin, 30 

Or played the athlete in the barn, 

Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 

Of classic legends rare and old, 

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 35 

Had all the commonplace of home, 

And little seemed at best the odds 

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 

Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 

The guise of any grist-mill brook, 40 

And dread Olympus at his will 

Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed ; 
But at his desk he had the look 



138 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And air of one who wisely schemed, 45 

And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore of book. 

Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he 

Shall Freedom's young apostles be, 

Who, following in War's bloody trail, 50 

Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 

All chains from limb and spirit strike, 

Uplift the black and white alike ; 

Scatter before their swift advance 

The darkness and the ignorance, 55 

The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 

Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 

Made murder pastime, and the hell 

Of prison-torture possible ; 

The cruel lie of caste refute, 60 

Old forms remould, and substitute 

For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 

For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; 

A school-house plant on every hill, 

Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 65 

The quick wires of intelligence ; 

Till North and South together brought 

Shall own the same electric thought, 

In peace a common flag salute, 

And, side by side in labor's free 70 

And unresentful rivalry, 

Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 



SIXTH YEAR 139 



TO-DAY 

Thomas Carlylb 

Here hath been dawning 

Another blue day ; 
Think, wilt thou let it 

Slip useless away. 

Out of Eternity 5 

This new day was born ; 
Into Eternity 

At night, will return. 

Behold it aforetime 

No eye ever did ; 10 

So soon it forever 

From all eyes is hid. 

Here hath been dawning 

Another blue day : 
Think, wilt thou let it 15 

Slip useless away. 



140 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

CONCORD HYMN 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, 
JULY 4, 1837 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 5 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On the green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone ; 10 

That memory may their deed redeem, 
When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 15 

The shaft we raise to them and thee. 

3. Does this shaft mark the spot where the farmers stood, or 
where the British fell ? Read Emerson's brief Address at the 
Hundredth Anniversary of the Concord Fight, April 19, 1875, the 
last piece written out with his own hand. {Cooke, 182.) 



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SIXTH YEAR 141 

SONG OF MARION'S MEN 

William Ccllen Bryant 

Our band is few but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good greenwood, 5 

Our tent the cypress-tree ; 
We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 10 

Its safe and silent islands 
Within the dark morass. 

Woe to the English soldiery 

That little dread us near ! 
On them shall light at midnight 15 

A strange and sudden fear : 
When, waking to their tents on fire, 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again ; 20 

And they who fly in terror deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

4. The exploits of General Francis Marion, the famous par- 
tisan warrior of South Carolina, form an intensely interesting 
chapter in the annals of the American Revolution. 



142 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 25 

From danger and from toil : 
We talk the battle over, 

And share the battle's spoil. 
The woodland rings with laugh and shout, 

As if a hunt were up, 30 

And woodland flowers are gathered 

To crown the soldier's cup. 
With merry songs we mock the wind 

That in the pine-top grieves, 
And slumber long and sweetly 35 

On beds of oaken leaves. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 

The band that Marion leads — 
The glitter of their rifles, 

The scampering of their steeds. 40 

'Tis life to guide the fiery barb 

Across the moonlight plain ; 
'T is life to feel the night-wind 

That lifts the tossing mane. 
A moment in the British camp — 45 

A moment — and away 
Back to the pathless forest, 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men there are by broad Santee, 

Grave men with hoary hairs ; 50 

Their hearts are all with Marion, 
For Marion are their prayers. 

And lovely ladies greet our band 
With kindliest welcoming, 

With smiles like those of summer, 55 



SIXTH YEAR 143 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear these trusty arms, 

And lay them down no more 
Till we have driven the Briton, 

Forever, from our shore. 60 



OLD IRONSIDES 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 5 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 10 

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck . 15 

The eagle of the sea! 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 
Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 



144 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And there should be her grave ; 20 

Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 



THE VOICE OF SPRING 

Felicia D. Hemans 

I COME, I come ! ye have called me long — 

I come o'er the mountains with light and song ! 

Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth 

By the winds which tell of the violet's birth, 

By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass, 5 

By the green leaves opening as I pass. 

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers 

By thousands have burst from the forest bowers, 

And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes 

Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains ; — 10 

But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom, 

To speak of the ruin or the tomb ! 

I have looked on the hills of the stormy North, 

And the larch has hung all his tassels forth, 

The fisher is out on the sunny sea, 15 

And the reindeer bounds o'er the pastures free, 

And the pine has a fringe of softer green, 

And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been. 



SIXTH YEAR 145 

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh, 
And called out each voice of the deep-blue sky ; 20 
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time, 
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime, 
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes, 
When the dark fir branch into verdure breaks. 

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain ; 
They are sweeping on to the silvery main, 26 

They are flashing down from the mountain brows, 
They are flinging spray o'er the forest boughs, 
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves, 
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves ! 30 

Come forth, O ye children of gladness ! come ! 

Where the violets lie may be now your home. 

Ye of the rose lip and dew-bright eye, 

And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly ! 

With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay, 35 

Come forth to the sunshine — I may not stay. 

Away from the dwellings of careworn men, 

The waters are sparkling in grove and glen ! 

Away from the chamber and sullen hearth, 

The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth ! 40 

Their light stems thrill to the wildwood strains, 

And youth is abroad in my green domains. 

But ye ! — ye are changed since ye met me last ! 
There is something bright from your features passed ! 
There is that come over your brow and eye 45 

Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die ! 
— Ye smile ! but your smile hath a dimness yet ; 
O, what have you looked on since last we met ? 



146 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Ye are changed, ye are changed ! — and I see not here 
All whom I saw in the vanished year ! 50 

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright, 
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light ; 
There were eyes in whose glistening laughter lay 
No faint remembrance of dull decay ! 

There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head, 55 

As if for a banquet all earth were spread ; 

There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky, 

And had not a sound of mortality ! 

Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains 

passed ? 
Ye have looked on death since ye met me last ! 60 

I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now, — 
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow ! 
Ye have given the lovely to Earth's embrace, — 
She hath taken the fairest of Beauty's race, 

With their laughing eyes and their festal crown : 65 
They are gone from amongst you in silence down ! 

They are gone from amongst you, the young and 

fair, 
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair ! 
But I know of a land where there falls no blight, — 
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light ! — 70 
Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may 

dwell, 
I tarry no longer, — farewell, farewell ! 

The summer is coming, on soft wings borne, — 
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn ! 



SIXTH YEAR 147 

For me, I depart to a brighter shore, — 75 

Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more ; 
I go where the loved who have left you dwell, 
And the flowers are not Death's. Fare ye well, fare- 
well! 



A LEGEND OF THE NORTHLAND 

Phcebe Cary 

Away, away in the Northland, 

Where the hours of the day are few, 

And the nights are so long in winter, 
They cannot sleep them through ; 

Where they harness the swift reindeer 5 

To the sledges, when it snows ; 
And the children look like bear's cubs 

In their funny, furry clothes : 

They tell them a curious story — 

I don't believe 't is true ; 10 

And yet you may learn a lesson 

If I tell the tale to you. 

Once, when the good Saint Peter 

Lived in the world below, 
And walked about it, preaching, 15 

Just as he did, you know ; 

He came to the door of a cottage, 

In travelling round the earth, 
Where a little woman was making cakes, 

And baking them on the hearth ; 20 



148 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And being faint with fasting, 

For the day was almost done, 
He asked her, from her store of cakes, 

To give him a single one. 

So she made a very little cake, 25 

But as it baking lay, 
She looked at it, and thought it seemed 

Too large to give away. 

Therefore she kneaded another, 

And still a smaller one ; 30 

But it looked, when she turned it over, 

As large as the first had done. 



*& v 



Then she took a tiny scrap of dough, 

And rolled and rolled it flat ; 
And baked it thin as a wafer — 35 

But she could n't part with that. 

For she said, " My cakes that seem too small 

When I eat of them myself, 
Are yet too large to give away." 

So she put them on the shelf. 40 

Then good Saint Peter grew angry, 

For he was hungry and faint ; 
And surely snch a woman 

Was enough to provoke a saint. 

And he said, " You are far too selfish 45 

To dwell in a human form, 
To have both food and shelter, 

And fire to keep you warm. 



SIXTH YEAR 149 

" Now, you shall build as the birds do, 

And shall get your scanty food 50 

By boring, and boring, and boring, 
All day in the hard dry wood." 

Then up she went through the chimney, 

Never speaking a word, 
And out of the top flew a woodpecker, 55 

For she was changed to a bird. 

She had a scarlet cap on her head, 

And that was left the same, 
But all the rest of her clothes were burned 

Black as a coal in the flame. 60 

And every country school-boy 

Has seen her in the wood ; 
Where she lives in the trees till this very day, 

Boring and boring for food. 

And this is the lesson she teaches : 65 

Live not for yourself alone, 
Lest the needs you will not pity 

Shall one day be your own. 

Give plenty of what is given to you, 

Listen to pity's call ; 70 

Don't think the little you give is great, 

And the much you get is small. 

Now, my little boy, remember that, 

And try to be kind and good, 
When you see the woodpecker's sooty dress, 75 

And see her scarlet hood. 



150 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

You maynt be changed to a bird, though you 
live 

As selfishly as you can ; 
But you will be changed to a smaller thing — 

A mean and selfish man. 80 



THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL 

(From the German of Julius Mosen) 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

On the cross the dying Saviour 
Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, 

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling 
In his pierced and bleeding palm. 

And by all the world forsaken, 5 

Sees He how with zealous care 
At the ruthless nail of iron 

A little bird is striving there. 

Stained with blood and never tiring, 

With its beak it doth not cease, 10 

From the cross ? t would free the Saviour 
Its Creator's Son release. 

And the Saviour speaks in mildness : 

" Blest be thou of all the good ! 
Bear, as token of this moment, 15 

Marks of blood and holy rood ! " 



SIXTH YEAR 151 

And that bird is called the crossbill ; 

Covered all with blood so clear, 
In the groves of pine it singeth 

Songs, like legends, strange to hear. 20 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

Francis Miles Finch 

By the flow of the inland river, 

Whence the fleets of iron had fled, 

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, 

Asleep are the ranks of the dead : 

Under the sod and the dew, 5 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Under the one, the Blue, 
Under the other, the Gray. 

These in the robings of glory, 

Those in the gloom of defeat, io 

All with the battle-blood gory, 

In the dusk of eternity meet: 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Under the laurel, the Blue, 15 

Under the willow, the Gray. 

From the silence of sorrowful hours 

The desolate mourners go, 
Lovingly laden with flowers 

Alike for the friend and the foe : 20 

Under the sod and the dew, 



152 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Under the roses, the Blue, 
Under the lilies, the Gray. 

So with an equal splendor, 25 

The morning sun-rays fall, 
With a touch impartially tender, 

On the blossoms blooming for all : 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 30 

Broidered with gold, the Blue, 
Mellowed with gold, the Gray. 

So, when the summer calleth, 

On forest and field of grain, 
With an equal murmur falleth 35 

The cooling drip of the rain : 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Wet with the rain, the Blue, 

Wet with the rain, the Gray. 40 

Sadly, but not with upbraiding, 

The generous deed was done, 
In the storm of the years that are fading 
No braver battle was won : 

Under the sod and the dew, 45 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Under the blossoms, the Blue, 
Under the garlands, the Gray. 

No more shall the war cry sever, 

Or the winding rivers be red ; 50 

They banish our anger forever 



SIXTH YEAR 153 

When they laurel the graves of our dead ! 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Love and tears for the Blue, 55 

Tears and love for the Gray. 



THE EUBY-CROWNED KINGLET 
Henry van Dyke 



Where 's your kingdom, little king ? 
Where 's the land you call your own, 
Where 's the palace, and your throne ? 
Fluttering lightly on the wing 

Through the blossom-world of May, 5 

Whither lies your royal way ? 
Where 's the realm that owns your sway, 
Little king ? 

Far to northward lies a land, 

Where the trees together stand 10 

Closer than the blades of wheat, 

When the summer is complete. 

Like a robe the forests hide 

Lonely vale and mountain side : 

Balsam, hemlock, spruce, and pine, — 15 

All those mighty trees are mine. 

There 's a river flowing free ; 

All its waves belong to me. 

There 's a lake so clear and bright 



154 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Stars shine out of it all night, 20 

And the rowan-berries red 

Round it like a girdle spread. 

Feasting plentiful and fine, 

Air that cheers the heart like wine, 

Royal pleasures by the score, 25 

Wait for me in Labrador. 

There I '11 build my dainty nest ; 

There I '11 fix my court and rest ; 

There from dawn to dark I '11 sing : 

Happy kingdom ! Lucky king ! 30 

II 

Back again, my little king ! 
Is your happy kingdom lost 
To that rebel knave, Jack Frost ? 

Have you felt the snow-flakes sting ? 

Autumn is a rude disrober ; 35 

Houseless, homeless in October, 
Whither now ? Your plight is sober, 
Exiled king ! 

Far to southward lie the regions 

Where my loyal flower-legions 40 

Hold possession of the year, 

Filling every mouth with cheer. 

Christmas wakes the winter rose ; 

New Year daffodils unclose ; 

Yellow jasmine through the woods 45 

Runs in March with golden floods, 

Dropping from the tallest trees 

Shining streams that never freeze. 

Thither I must find my way, 



SIXTH YEAR 155 

Fly by night and feed Try day, — 50 

Till I see the southern moon 

Glistening on the broad lagoon, 

Where the cypress' vivid green, 

And the dark magnolia's sheen, 

Weave a shelter round my home. 55 

There the snow-storms never come : 

There the bannered mosses gray 

In the breezes gently sway, 

Hanging low on every side 

Round the covert where I hide. 60 

There I hold my winter court, 

Full of merriment and sport : 

There I take my ease and sing : 

Happy kingdom ! Lucky king ! 



Ill 

Little boaster, vagrant king! 65 

Neither north nor south is yours : 
You 've no kingdom that endures. 

Wandering every fall and spring, 

With your painted crown so slender. 
And your talk of royal splendor, 70 

Must I call you a Pretender, 
Landless king ? 

Never king by right divine 

Ruled a richer realm than mine ! 

What are lands and golden crowns, 75 

Armies, fortresses, and towns, 

Jewels, sceptres, robes, and rings, — 

What are these to song and wings ? 



156 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Everywhere that I can fly, 

There I own the earth and sky ; 80 

Everywhere that I can sing, 

There I 'm happy as a king. 



SIR LARK AND KING SUN 

George Macdonald 

" Good morrow, my lord ! " in the sky alone 

Sang the lark as the sun ascended his throne. 

u Shine on me, my lord : I only am come, 

Of all your servants, to welcome you home ! 

I have shot straight up, a whole hour, I swear, 5 

To catch the first gleam of your golden hair.*' 

" Must I thank you then," said the king, " Sir Lark, 
For flying so high and hating the dark ? 
You ask a full cup for half a thirst : 
Half was love of me, half love to be first. 10 

Some of my subjects serve better my taste : 
Their watching and waiting means more than your 
haste." 

King Sun wrapped his head in a turban of cloud ; 
Sir Lark stopped singing, quite vexed and cowed ; 
But higher he flew, for he thought, " Anon 15 

The wrath of the king w r ill be over and gone ; 
And, scattering his head-gear manifold, 
He will change my brown feathers to a glory of gold ! M 



SIXTH YEAR 157 

He flew, with the strength of a lark he flew, 

But as he rose the cloud rose too ; 20 

And not one gleam of the flashing hair 

Brought signal of favor across the air ; 

And his wings felt withered and worn and old, 

For their feathers had had no chrism of gold. 

Outwearied at length, and throbbing sore, 25 

The strong sun-seeker could do no more ; 

He faltered and sank, then dropped like a stone 

Beside his nest, where, patient, alone, 

Sat his little wife on her little eggs, 

Keeping them warm with wings and legs. 30 

Did I say alone ? Ah, no such thing ! 

There was the cloudless, the ray-crowned king ! 

" Welcome, Sir Lark ! — You look tired ! " said he : 

" Up is not always the best way to me : 

While you have been racing my turban gray, 35 

I have been shining where you would not stay ! " 

He had set a coronet round the nest ; 

Its radiance foamed on the wife's little breast ; 

And so glorious was she in russet gold 

That Sir Lark for wonder and awe grew cold ; 40 

He popped his head under her wing, and lay 

As still as a stone till King Sun went away. 



SEVENTH YEAR 

YUSSOUF 

James Russell Lowell 

A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent, 
Saying, " Behold one outcast and in dread, 
Against whose life the bow of power is bent, 
Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head ; 
I come to thee for shelter and for food, 5 

To Yussouf, called through all our tribes 'The 
Good.' " 

" This tent is mine," said Yussouf, " but no more 
Than it is God's ; come in, and be at peace ; 
Freely shalt thou partake of all my store 
As I of His who buildeth over these 10 

Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, 
And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." 

So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, 
And, waking him ere day, said : " Here is gold ; 
My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight ; 15 

Depart before the prying day grow bold." 
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, 
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. 

That inward light the stranger's face made grand, 
Which shines from all self -conquest ; kneeling low, 



SEVENTH YEAR 159 

He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand, 21 
Sobbing : " O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so ; 
I will repay thee ; all this thou hast done 
Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son ! " 

" Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, " for with 

thee 
Into the desert, never to return, 26 

My one black thought shall ride away from 

me ; 
First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn, 
Balanced and just are all of God's decrees ; 
Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace ! " 30 



160 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

SELECTION FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE 

Sir Walter Scott 
ALICE BRAND 

Merry it is in the good greenwood, 

When the mavis and merle are singing, 

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in 
cry, 
And the hunter's horn is ringing. 

" O Alice Brand, my native land 5 

Is lost for love of you ; 
And we must hold by wood and wold, 
As outlaws wont to do. 

" O AJice, 't was all for thy locks so bright, 

And 't was all for thine eyes so blue, ' 10 

That on the night of our luckless flight 
Thy brother bold I slew. 

" Now must I teach to hew the beech 
The hand that held the glaive, 
For leaves to spread our lowly bed, 15 

And stakes to fence our cave. 

" And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, 
That wont on harp to stray, 
A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer, 
To keep the cold away." 20 



SEVENTH YEAR 161 

" O Richard ! if my brother died, 
'T was but a fatal chance ; 
For darkling was the battle tried, 
And fortune sped the lance. 

" If pall and vair no more I wear, 25 

Nor thou the crimson sheen, 
As warm, we '11 say, is the russet gray, 
As gay the forest-green. 

"And, Richard, if our lot be hard, 

And lost thy native land, 30 

Still Alice has her own Richard, 
And he his Alice Brand." 

'T is merry, 't is merry, in good greenwood ; 

So blithe Lady Alice is singing ; 
On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side, 35 

Lord Richard's axe is ringing. 

Up spoke the moody Elfin King, 

Who woned within the hill, — 
Like wind in the porch of a ruined church, 

His voice was ghostly shrill. 40 

" Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, 

Our moonlight circle's screen ? 
Or who comes here to chase the deer, 

Beloved of our Elfin Queen ? 
Or who may dare on wold to wear 45 

The fairies' fatal green ? 



162 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" Up, Urgan, up ! to yon mortal hie, 
For thou wert christened man ; 
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly, 

For muttered word or ban. 50 

i4 Lay on him the curse of the withered heart, 
The curse of the sleepless eye ; 
Till he wish and pray that his life would part, 
Nor yet find leave to die." 

'T is merry, 't is merry, in good greenwood, 55 
Though the birds have stilled their singing ; 

The evening blaze doth Alice raise, 
And Richard is fagots bringing. 

Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf, 

Before Lord Richard stands, 60 

And, as he crossed and blessed himself, 
i4 1 fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf, 
" That is made with bloody hands." 

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand, 

That woman void of fear, — 65 

M And if there 's blood upon his hand, 
'T is but the blood of deer." 

•' Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood ! 
It cleaves unto his hand, 
The stain of thine own kindly blood, 70 

The blood of Ethert Brand." 

Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand, 
And made the holy sign, — 



SEVENTH YEAR 163 

" And if there 's blood on Richard's hand, 

A spotless hand is mine. 75 

" And I conjure thee, demon elf, 
By Him whom demons fear, 
To show us whence thou art thyself, 
And what thine errand here ? " 

" 'T is merry, 't is merry, in Fairy-land, 80 

When fairy birds are singing, 
When the court doth ride by their monarch's side, 
With bit and bridle ringing : 

" And gayly shines the Fairy-land — 

But all is glistening show, 85 

Like the idle gleam that December's beam 
Can dart on ice and snow. 

" And fading, like that varied gleam, 
Is our inconstant shape, 
Who now like knight and lady seem, 90 

And now like dwarf and ape. 

" It was between the night and day, 

When the Fairy King has power, 
That I sunk down in a sinful fray, 
And 'twixt life and death was snatched away 95 

To the joyless Elfin bower. 

44 But wist I of a woman bold, 

Who thrice my brow durst sign, 
I might regain my mortal mould, 

As fair a form as thine." 100 



164 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

She crossed him once — she crossed him twice — • 

That lady was so brave ; 
The fouler grew his goblin hue, 

The darker grew the cave. 

She crossed him thrice, that lady bold ; 105 

He rose beneath her hand 
The fairest knight on Scottish mould, 

Her brother, Ethert Brand ! 

Merry it is in good greenwood, 

When the mavis and merle are singing, no 
But merrier were they in Dunfermline gray, 

When all the bells were ringing. 



HUNTING SONG 

Sir Walter Scott 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
On the mountain dawns the day, 
All the jolly chase is here, 
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear ! 
Hounds are in their couples yelling, 5 

Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, 
Merrily, merrily, mingle they, 
" Waken, lords and ladies gay." 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
The mist has left the mountain gray, 10 

Springlets in the dawn are streaming, 
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming : 



SEVENTH YEAR 165 

And foresters have busy been 
To track the buck in thicket green ; 
Now we come to chant our lay, 15 

" Waken, lords and ladies gay." 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
To the green- wood haste away ; 
We can show you where he lies, 
Fleet of foot and tall of size ; 20 

We can show the marks he made, 
When 'gainst the oak his antlers f rayed ; 
You shall see him brought to bay, 
" Waken, lords and ladies gay." 

Louder, louder chants the lay, 25 

Waken, lords and ladies gay ! 

Tell them youth and mirth and glee 

Run a course as well as we ; 

Time, stern huntsman, who can balk, 

Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk ? 30 

Think of this and rise with day, 

Gentle lords and ladies gay. 

JUNE 

From The Vision of Sir Launf al. Prelude to Part First. 
James Russell Lowell 

And what is so rare as a day in June? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays ; 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 5 

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 



166 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 10 

The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 15 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 20 

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 25 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 30 

No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 36 

The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 



SEVENTH YEAR 167 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the *river is bluer than the sky, 40 

That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 45 

Warmed with the new wine of the year, 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving ; 50 

'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural way of living : 
Who knows whither the clouds have fled? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 55 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 60 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 

WINTER 

From The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part Second. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 

On open wold and hilltop bleak 

It had gathered all the cold, 

1. Different moods are indicated by the two Preludes. The 
first is of June, this one of snow and winter ; in each, the poet, 



168 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 5 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare ; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 10 

He oroined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 15 

like an organist, strikes a key which he holds in the subsequent 
parts. 

8. In An Indian- Summer Reverie is a description of the river 
in " smooth plate-armor," . . . 

" By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night." 

The difference in these two descriptions lies chiefly in point 
of view ; the little brook builds himself a house, and literally 
roofs it above his head. Lowell, in imagination, writes his de- 
scription of this winter palace of ice from within, personifying 
the brook as builder and inhabitant. In the other description, 
written earlier, the river is seen from above, as encased in 
armor and exposed to the "lances of the sun." Even in the 
"fresh-sparred grots," and "the grass-arched channels to the 
sun denied," the vision in the mind is always of the poet, or 
the reader, standing on the bank above and looking down on 
" the ebbing river." 

In the descent of the storm-wind gathering the cold, and in 
the description of morning, her veins sapless and old, rising up 
decrepitly " for a last dim look at earth and sea," there is a 
haunting suggestion of the storm-blast in The Ancient Mariner 
chasing the good ship southward through mist and snow, but 
there is nowhere an imitation or a borrowed phrase. The true 
poet catches the very spirit and life from another man's work 
and thus enriches his own imagination. The resemblance that 
arises thus is elusive and difficult to trace, and is found, if at 
all, in a subtle similarity of atmosphere or purpose, or figurative 
conception, adapted to a new point of view or use. 



SEVENTH YEAR 169 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 
Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 
Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 20 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and 
here 25 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 
That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 
And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 30 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 
In his depths serene through the summer day, 
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 35 

Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, 

And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 40 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 

Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 

30. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II, in a magnificent 
freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. 
Cowper has given a poetical description of it in The Task, Book 
V, lines 131-176. 



170 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 45 

Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 
And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 50 

Like herds of startled deer. 

But the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 

The icy strings, 55 

Singing, in dreary monotone, 
A Christmas carol of its own, 
Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 60 

As he shouted the wanderer away from the perch, 
And he sat in the gateway and saw ail night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 65 

Against the drift of the cold. 

43. The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the 
feast of Juul (pronounced Yule) by our Scandinavian ancestors 
in honor of the god Thor. Juul-tid (Yule-time) corresponded 
in time to Christmastide, and when Christian festivities took 
the place of pagan, many ceremonies remained. The great log, 
still called the Yule-log, was dragged in and burned in the fire- 
place after Thor had been forgotten. 



SEVENTH YEAR 171 



"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX " 

Robert Browning 

Browning wrote to an American inquirer about this poem : " There 
is no sort of historical foundation for the poem about ' Good News 
from Ghent.' I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel, off the 
African coast, after I had been at sea long* enough to appreciate even 
the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse ' York,' then 
in my stable at home. It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of 
Bartoli's Simboli, I remember." It is interesting to see how, forty 
years later, Browning was writing a poem on Bartoli, in his Parley- 
ings with Certain People of Importance in their Day. As for the stages 
in this ride, a reader with a sufficiently minute map by him can trace 
the progress from Ghent across Belgium to Aix-la-Chapelle, a distance 
as the crow flies of between fifty and sixty miles. 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

" Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts 

undrew ; 
" Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 5 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our 

place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the 

bit, 10 

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 



172 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

9 T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; 1£ 

At Diiffeld. 't was morning as plain as could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime, 
So Joris broke silence with. " Yet there is time ! " 

At Aershot. up leaped of a sudden the sun, 

And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 

To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 

With resolute shoulders, each butting away 

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray : 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent 
back 25 

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 

And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 

O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and 
anon 

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, " Stay 

spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, 
We '11 remember at Aix " — for one heard the quick 

wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering 

knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 



SEVENTH YEAR 173 

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like 
chaff ; 40 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight ! " 

" How they '11 greet us ! " — and all in a moment his 

roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 44 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her 

fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without 

peer ; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad 

or good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 55 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news 
from Ghent. 60 



174 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

Walt Whitman 
I 
O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we 

sought is won ; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all ex- 
ulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
daring : 
But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 5 

O the bleeding drops of red, 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

II 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
Kise up — for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle 
trills ; 10 

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the 

shores a-crowding ; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning ; 
Here Captain ! dear father ! 

This arm beneath your head ; 

It is some dream that on the deck 15 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 

in 
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor 
will; 



SEVENTH YEAR 175 

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed 

and done : 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object 
won ; 20 

Exult, O shores ! and ring, O bells ! 
But I, with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies 
Fallen cold and dead. 



SIR GALAHAD 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

My good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 5 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, 

The horse and rider reel ; 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

And when the tide of combat stands, 10 

Perfume and flowers fall in showers, 

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favors fall ! 
For them I battle till the end, 15 

To save from shame and thrall ; 
But all my heart is drawn above, 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine ; 



176 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

I never felt the kiss of love, 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 20 

More bounteous aspects on me beam, 

Me mightier transports move and thrill ; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 



When down the stormy crescent goes, 25 

A light before me swims, 
Between dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of hymns. 
Then by some secret shrine I ride ; 

I hear a voice, but none are there ; 30 

The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 

The tapers burning fair. 
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 

The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 35 

And solemn chaunts resound between. 

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark. 
I leap on board ; no helmsman steers ; 

I float till all is dark. 40 

A gentle sound, an awful light ! 

Three angels bear the Holy Grail ; 
With folded feet, in stoles of white, 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 45 

My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
As down dark tides the glory slides, 

And starlike mingles with the stars. 



EIGHTH YEAR 177 

When on my goodly charger borne 

Thro' dreaming towns I go, 50 

The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads, 

And, ringing, springs from brand and mail ; 
But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 55 

And gilds the driving hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height ; 

No branchy thicket shelter yields ; 
But blessed forms in w r histling storms 

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. 60 

A maiden knight — to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear ; 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on joy that will not cease, 65 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odors haunt my dreams ; 
And, stricken by an angel's hand, 

This mortal armor that I* wear, 70 

This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 

The clouds are broken in the sky, 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 75 

Swells up and shakes and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear : 



178 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" O just and faithful knight of God ! 

Ride on! the prize is near." 80 

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
All-arm'd I ride, wbate'er betide, 

Until I find the Holy Grail. 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 

Robert Burns 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower 5 
Thou 's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stour 

Thy slender stem; 
To spare thee now is past my power, 5 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas ! it 's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet 

Wi' spreckled breast, 10 

When upward springing, blythe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 

Upon thy early, humble birth ; 

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 15 

Amid the storm ; 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 



SEVENTH YEAR 179 

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield 

High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield, 20 

But thou beneath the random bield 

O' clod or stane 
Adorns the histie stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 25 

Thy snawy bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! 30 



EIGHTH YEAR 

TO A WATERFOWL 

William Cullen Bryant 

Whither, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost though pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 5 

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 10 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 15 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 20 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 



EIGHTH YEAR 181 

And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone ! the abyss of heaven 25 

Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He, who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone 31 

Will lead my steps aright. 



182 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 



HERVE KIEL 

Robert Browning 

This ballad was printed first in the Cornhill Magazine for March, 
1871. In a letter to Mr. George Smith, one of the publishers of the 
magazine, Browning stated that he intended to devote the proceeds 
of the poem to the aid of the people of Paris suffering from the 
Franco-German war. The publisher generously seconded his resolve 
and paid one hundred pounds for the poem. The poem is faithful to 
the incident of Herv^ Kiel, with the trivial exception that the holi- 
day to see his wife was for the remainder of his life instead of for 
one day. 



On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through 
the blue, 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the 
Ranee, 5 

With the English fleet in view. 

II 

'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in 
full chase ; 

1. The battle of La Hogue was fought May 19, 1692. The 
English and Dutch were pitted against the French, and the 
result of the battle was the transfer of sea-power from France 
to England. 



EIGHTH YEAR 183 

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damf reville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all ; 10 

And they signalled to the place 
" Help the winners of a race ! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — 

or, quicker still, 
Here 's the English can and will ! " 

in 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt 

on board ; 15 

" Why, what hope or chance have ships like these 

to pass ? " laughed they : 

" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the ' Formidable ' here, with her twelve and 
eighty guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single nar- 
row way, 
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 
And with flow at full beside? 21 

Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs, 

Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 25 

rv 

Then was called a council straight. 
Brief and bitter the debate : 

" Here 's the English at our heels ; would you have 
them take in tow 



184 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern 

and bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 30 

Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville his speech). 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 

Let the Captains all and each 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on 
the beach ! 35 

France must undergo her fate. 



" Give the word ! " But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid 
all these 
— A Captain? A Lieutenant? A Mate — first, 
second, third? 40 

No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 
But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 

VI 

And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 
Herve Riel : 45 

" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, 
fools, or rogues ? 

44. Le Croisic is a small fishing village near the mouth of the 
Loire. Browning sometimes sojourned there, and made it the 
scene of a long poem, The Two Poets of Croisic. 



EIGHTH YEAR 185 

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 
'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river 
disembogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the 
lying 's for ? 50 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay, 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe 
me there 's a way ! 55 

Only let me lead the line, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine, 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 60 

Eight to Solidor past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound ; 
And if one ship misbehave, 
— Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I 've nothing but my life, — here 's my head ! " 
cries Herve Kiel. 65 

vn 

Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 



186 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

He is Admiral, in brief. 70 

Still the north- wind, by God's grace ! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide 
sea's profound ! 75 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 

How they follow in a flock, 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 

Not a spar that comes to grief ! 
The peril, see, is past, 80 

All are harbored to the last, 
And just as Herve Kiel hollas " Anchor ! " — sure as 

fate, 
Up the English come — too late ! 

vin 

So, the storm subsides to calm : 

They see the green trees wave 85 

On the heights o'erlooking Greve. 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance, 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 

As they cannonade away ! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the 

Eance ! " 
How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's counte- 
nance ! 
Out burst all with one accord, 

" This is Paradise for Hell ! 95 



EIGHTH YEAR 187 

Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
What a shout, and all one word, 

"HerveRiel!" 
As he stepped in front once more, 100 

Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
Just the same man as before. 

IX 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 

I must speak out at the end, 105 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the King his ships, 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse! 110 

Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not 
Damfreville." 



Then a beam of fun outbroke 

On the bearded mouth that spoke, 115 

As the honest heart laughed through 

Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 

" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty 's done, 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it 
but a run? — 120 

Since 't is ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 



188 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 

Aurore ! " 
That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 125 

XI 

Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
Not a head in white and black 

On a single fishing smack, 130 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to 
wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence Eng- 
land bore the bell. 
Go to Paris : rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ! 135 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve 
Kiel. 
So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Kiel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the 
Belle Aurore ! 140 
















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J 

W Will. 


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'Jb/Utt*£tez 




EIGHTH YEAR 189 



TELLING THE BEES 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly pre- 
vailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a 
member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, 
and their hives dressed in mourning-. This ceremonial was supposed 
to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and 
seeking a new home. [The scene is minutely that of the Whittier 
homestead.] 

Here is the place ; right over the hill 

Runs the path I took ; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 5 

And the poplars tall ; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 

And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 

And down by the brink 10 

Of the -brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, 

Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 

Heavy and slow ; 
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 15 

And the same brook sings of a year ago. 



190 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze ; 

And the June sun warm 
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 

Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 20 

I mind me how with a lover's care 

From my Sunday coat 
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, 

And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. 

Since we parted, a month had passed, — 25 

To love, a year ; 
Down through the beeches I looked at last 

On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. 

I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain 

Of light through the leaves, 30 

The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, 
The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 

Just the same as a month before, — 

The house and the trees, 
The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, — 35 

Nothing changed but the hive of bees. 

Before them, under the garden wall, 

Forward and back, 
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, 

Draping each hive with a shred of black. 40 

Trembling, I listened : the summer sun 
Had the chill of snow ; 



EIGHTH YEAR 191 

ie was telling the bees of 
Gone on the journey we all must go ! 



For I knew she was telling the bees of one 



Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 45 

For the dead to-day : 
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 

The fret and the pain of his age away." 



But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, 
With his cane to his chin, 50 

The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still 
Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 



And the song she was singing ever since 
In my ears sounds on : — 
" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 55 

Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " 



THE REVENGE 

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

I 
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, 
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from 

far away ; 
" Spanish ships of war at sea ! we have sighted fifty- 
three ! " 



192 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard : " 'Fore God I am 
no coward ; 

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of 
gear, 5 

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow 
quick. 

We are six ships of the line ; can Ave fight with fifty- 
three?" 

n 

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville : " I know you are 

no coward; 
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. 
But I 've ninety men and more that are lying sick 

ashore. 10 

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my 

Lord Howard, 
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain." 

in 

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that 

day, 
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven ; 
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the 

land 15 

Very carefully and slow, 
Men of Bideford in Devon, 
And we laid them on the ballast down below ; 
For we brought them all aboard, 
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not 

left to Spain, 20 

To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the 

Lord. 



EIGHTH YEAR 193 

IV 

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and 
to fight, 

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came 
in sight, 

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather 
bow. 

" Shall we fight or shall we fly ? 25 

Good Sir Richard, tell us now, 

For to fight is but to die ! 

There '11 be little of us left by the time this sun be set." 

And Sir Richard said again : " We be all good Eng- 
lish men. 

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the 
devil, 30 

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet." 

v 

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a 

hurrah, and so 
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, 
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick 

below ; 
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left 

were seen, 35 

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane 

between. 

VI 

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their 

decks and laugh'd, 
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad 

little craft 



194 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Running on and on, till delay 'd 

By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hun- 
dred tons, 40 

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers 
of guns, 

Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd. 

VII 

And while now the great San Philip hung above us 

like a cloud 
Whence the thunderbolt will fall 

Long and loud, 45 

Four galleons drew away 
From the Spanish fleet that day, 
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard 

lay, 
And the battle-thunder broke from them all. 



VIII 

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself 

and went, 50 

Having that within her womb that had left her ill 

content ; 
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us 

hand to hand, 
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and mus- 

queteers, 
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes 

his ears 
When he leaps from the water to the land. 55 



EIGHTH YEAR 195 

IX 

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far 

over the summer sea, 
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the 

fifty-three. 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built 

galleons came, 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle- 
thunder and flame ; 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with 

her dead and her shame. 60 

For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so 

could fight us no more — 
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world 

before? 

x 

For he said, " Fight on ! fight on ! " 
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck; 
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer 

night was gone, 65 

With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the 

deck, 
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly 

dead, 
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the 

head, 
And he said, " Fight on ! fight on ! " 

XI 

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far 
over the summer sea, 70 

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us 
all in a ring ; 



196 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

But they dared not touch us again, for they fear 'd that 

we still could sting, 
So they watch'd what the end would be. 
And we had not fought them in vain, 
But in perilous plight were we, 75 

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, 
And half of the rest of us maira'd for life 
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate 

strife ; 
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them 

stark and cold, 
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder 

was all of it spent ; 80 

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the 

side ; 
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride : 
" We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 
As may never be fought again ! 

We have won great glory, my men ! 85 

And a day less or more 
At sea or ashore, 
We die — does it matter when ? 
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner — sink her, split her 

in twain ! 
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of 

Spain!" 90 

XII 

And the gunner said, " Ay, ay," but the seamen made 

reply: 
" We have children, we have wives, 
And the Lord hath spared our lives. 
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let 

us go ; 



EIGHTH YEAR 197 

We shall live to fight again and to strike another 
blow." 95 

And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the 
foe. 

XIII 
And the stately Spanish men to their flag-shij) bore 

him then, 
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard 

caught at last, 
And they praised him to his face with their courtly 

foreign grace ; 
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried : 100 

" I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant 

man and true ; 
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do. 
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die ! " 
And he fell upon their decks, and he died. 

XIV 

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant 

and true, 105 

And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap 
That he dared her with one little ship and his English 

few ; 
Was he devil or man ? He was devil for aught they 

knew, 
But they sank his body with honor down into the deep, 
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien 

crew, 110 

And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her 

own; 
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke 

from sleep, 



198 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And the water began to heave and the weather to 
moan, 

And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, 

And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earth- 
quake grew, 115 

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their 
masts and their flags, 

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shat- 
ter'd navy of Spain, 

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island 
crags 

To be lost evermore in the main. 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN 

SHOWING HOW HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE IN- 
TENDED, AND CAME HOME SAFE AGAIN. 

John Gilpin was a citizen 

Of credit and renown, 
A trainband captain eke was he 

Of famous London town. 

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear 5 

"Though wedded we have been 
These twice ten tedious years, yet we 
No holiday have seen. 

" To-morrow is our wedding day, 

And we will then repair 10 

Unto the Bell at Edmonton 
All in a chaise and pair. 

" My sister, and my sister's child, 
Myself, and children three, 
Will fill the chaise ; so you must ride 15 

On horseback after we." 

He soon replied, " I do admire 

Of womankind but one, 
And you are she, my dearest dear, 

Therefore it shall be done. 20 

16. Mrs. Gilpin had a better ear for rhyme than she had 
knowledge of grammar. 



200 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

" I am a linendraper bold, 

As all the world doth know, 
And my good friend the calender 
Will lend his horse to go." 

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, " That 's well said. 25 

And for that wine is dear, 
We will be furnished with our own, 

Which is both bright and clear." 

John Gilpin kiss'd his loving wife; 

O'erjoyed was he to find, 30 

That, though on pleasure she was bent, 

She had a frugal mind. 

The morning came, the chaise was brought, 

But yet was not allow'd 
To drive up to the door, lest all 35 

Should say that she was proud. 

So three doors off the chaise was stay'd, 

Where they did all get in ; 
Six precious souls, and all agog 

To dash through thick and thin. 40 

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, 

Were never folks so glad, 
The stones did rattle underneath, 

As if Cheapside were mad. 

John Gilpin at his horse's side 45 

Seized fast the flowing mane, 

23. As John Gilpin was a linendraper, he could safely count 
on the friendship of a man whose business it was to press and 
smooth out cloth in a machine. 



EIGHTH YEAR 201 

And up he got, in haste to ride, 
But soon came down again ; 

For saddletree scarce reach'd had he 

His journey to begin, 50 

When, turning round his head, he saw 
Three customers come in. 

So down he came ; for loss of time, 

Although it grieved him sore, 
Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 55 

Would trouble him much more. 

'T was long before the customers 

Were suited to their mind, 
When Betty screaming came down stairs, 
" The wine is left behind I " 60 

;t Good lack ! " quoth he — " yet bring it me, 
My leathern belt likewise, 
In which I bear my trusty sword 
When I do exercise." 

Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul !) 65 

Had two stone bottles found, 
To hold the liquor that she loved, 

And keep it safe and sound. 

Each bottle had a curling ear, 

Through which the belt he drew, 70 

And hung a bottle on each side, 

To make his balance true. 

52. It was the custom then in London, much more than now, 
for a shopkeeper to live over his shop. 



202 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Then over all, that he might be 

Equipp'd from top to toe, 
His long red cloak, well brush'd and neat, 75 

He manfully did throw. 

Now see him mounted once again 

Upon his nimble steed, 
Full slowiy pacing o'er the stones, 

With caution and good heed. 80 

But finding soon a smoother road 

Beneath his well shod feet, 
The snorting beast began to trot, 

Which gall'd him in his seat. 

" So, fair and softly," John he cried, 85 

But John he cried in vain ; 
That trot became a gallop soon, 
In spite of curb and rein. 

So stooping down, as needs he must 

Who cannot sit upright, 90 

He grasp'd the mane with both his hands, 
And eke with all his might. 

His horse, who never in that sort 

Had handled been before, 
What thing upon his back had got 95 

Did wonder more and more. 

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought ; 

Away went hat and wig ; 
He little dreamt, when he set out, 

Of running such a rig. 100 



EIGHTH YEAR 203 

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, 

Like streamer long and gay, 
Till, loop and button failing both, 

At last it flew away. 

Then might all people well discern 105 

The bottles he had slung ; 
A bottle swinging at each side, 

As hath been said or sung. 

The dogs did bark, the children scream'd, 

Up flew the windows all ; 110 

And every soul cried out, " Well done ! " 
As loud as he could bawl. 

Away went Gilpin — who but he ? 
His fame soon spread around, 
" He carries weight ! he rides a race! 115 

'T is for a thousand pound ! " 

And still as fast as he drew near, 

'T was wonderful to view, 
How in a trice the turnpike men 

Their gates wide open threw. 120 

And now, as he went bowing down 

His reeking head full low, 
The bottles twain behind his back 

Were shatter'd at a blow. 

Down ran the wine into the road, 125 

Most piteous to be seen, 

114. So did the honest people think our linendraper a man 
who rode for a wager, being handicapped for the trial. 



204 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Which made his horse's flanks to smoke 
As they had basted been. 

But still he seem'd to carry weight, 

With leathern girdle braced ; 130 

For all might see the bottle necks 
Still dangling at his waist. 

Thus all through merry Islington 

These gambols did he play, 
Until he came unto the Wash 135 

Of Edmonton so gay ; 

And there he threw the wash about 

On both sides of the way, 
Just like unto a trundling mop, 

Or a wild goose at play. 140 

At Edmonton his loving wife 

From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wondering much 

To see how he did ride. 

" Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! — Here's the house," 
They all at once did cry ; 146 

" The dinner waits, and we are tired " : 
Said Gilpin — " So am I ! " 

But yet his horse was not a whit 

Inclined to tarry there ; 150 

For why ? — his owner had a house 

Full ten miles off, at Ware. 
133. Where Tom lived. 



EIGHTH YEAR 205 

So like an arrow swift he flew, 

Shot by an archer strong ; 
So did he fly — which brings me to 155 

The middle of my song. 

Away went Gilpin out of breath, 

And sore against his will, 
Till at his friend the calender's 

His horse at last stood still. 160 

The calender, amazed to see 

His neighbor in such trim, 
Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, 

And thus accosted him : 

" What news ? what news ? your tidings tell 165 
Tell me you must and shall — 
Say why bareheaded you are come, 
Or why you come at all ?" 

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, 

And loved a timely joke ; 170 

And thus unto the calender 

In merry guise he spoke : 

" I came because your horse would come ; 
And, if I well forbode, 
My hat and wig will soon be here, 175 

They are upon the road." 

The calender, right glad to find 

His friend in merry pin, 
Return'd him not a single word, 

But to the house went in ; 180 



206 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; 

A wig that flow'd behind, 
A hat not much the worse for wear, 

Each comely in its kind. 

He held them up, and in his turn 185 

Thus show'd his ready wit, 
" My head is twice as big as yours, 
They therefore needs must fit. 

" But let me scrape the dirt away 

That hangs upon your face ; 190 

And stop and eat, for well you may 
Be in a hungry case." 

Said John, " It is my wedding day, 

And all the world would stare, 
If wife should dine at Edmonton, 195 

And I should dine at Ware." 

So turning to his horse, he said, 
" I am in haste to dine ; 
'T was for your pleasure you came here, 

You shall go back for mine." 200 

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast ! 

For which he paid full dear; 
For, while he spake, a braying ass 

Did sing most loud and clear ; 

Whereat his horse did snort, as he 205 

Had heard a lion roar, 
And gallop'd off with all his might, 

As he had done before, 



EIGHTH YEAR 207 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

Went Gilpin's hat and wig: 210 

He lost thern sooner than at first, 

For why ? — they were too big. 

Now mistress Gilpin, when she saw 

Her husband posting down 
Into the country far away, 215 

She pull'd out half a crown ; 

And thus unto the youth she said, 
That drove them to the Bell, 
" This shall be yours, when you bring back 

My husband safe and well." 220 

The youth did ride, and soon did meet 

John coming back amain ; 
Whom in a trice he tried to stop, 

By catching at his rein ; 

220. Cowper wrote a little episode which he left out of the 
poem ; it would appear to have come in at this place, for it was 
as follows: — 

Then Mrs Gilpin sweetly said 

Unto her children three, 

" I'll clamber o'er the stile so high 

And you climb after me." 

But having climbed unto the top, 

She could no farther go ; 
But sat to every passer-by 

A spectacle and show, 

Who said : "Your spouse and you to-day 

Both show your horsemanship ; 
And if you stay till he comes back 

Your horse will need no whip." 

This may have been one fragment only from a first draft. It 
is clear that it would, }iave interrupted, the gallop of the poem. 



208 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

But not performing what he meant, 225 

And gladly would have done, 
The frighted steed he frighted more, 

And made him faster run. 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

Went postboy at his heels, 230 

The postboy's horse right glad to miss 

The lumbering of the wheels. 

Six gentlemen upon the road, 

Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
With postboy scampering in the rear, 235 

They raised the hue and cry : — 

" Stop thief ! stop thief ! — a highwayman ! " 
Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that passed that way 

Did join in the pursuit. 240 

And now the turnpike gates again 

Flew open in short space ; 
The toll-men thinking as before, 

That Gilpin rode a race. 

And so he did, and won it too, 245 

For he got first to town ; 
Nor stopp'd till where he had got up 

He did again get down. 

236. To raise a hue and cry is the technical term in law for 
the assistance which chance passers-by render an officer of the 
law who is in pursuit of a rogue. 



EIGHTH YEAR 209 

Now let us sing, " Long live the king, 

And Gilpin, long live he ; " 250 

And when he next doth ride abroad, 
May I be there to see ! 



SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE i 
Sidney Lanier 

Out of the hills of Habersham, 

Down the valleys of Hall, 
I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
Split at the rock and together again, 5 

Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
And flee from folly on every side 
With a lover's pain to attain the plain 

Far from the hills of Habersham, 

Far from the valleys of Hall. 10 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 
The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
The wilful waterweeds held me thrall, 
The laving laurel turned my tide, 15 

The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, 
The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, 

Here in the hills of Habersham, 

Here in the valleys of Hall. 20 

1 From The Poems of Sidney Lanier. Copyright, 1884 and 
1891, by Mary D. Lanier. Published by Charles Scribner's 
Sons. 



210 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

High o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
The hickory told me manifold 
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 25 

The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, 
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, 
These glades in the valleys of Hall. 30 

And oft in the hills of Habersham, 

And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brookstone 
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, 
And many a luminous jewel lone 35 

— Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — 
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 

In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 

In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 40 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 

And oh, not the valleys of Hall 
Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 45 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain 

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Calls through the valleys of Hall. 50 



EIGHTH YEAR 211 

OPPORTUNITY 

Edward Rowland Sill 

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream : — 
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ; 
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 5 
Wavered, then staggered back, hemmed in by foes. 
A craven hung along the battle's edge, 
And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel — 
That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this 
Blunt thing — ! " he snapt and flung it from his hand, 
And lowering crept away and left the field. 11 

Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, 
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout 15 
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, 
And saved a great cause that heroic day. 

THE RHODORA 

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER ? 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 

To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 

The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 5 

Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 



212 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 10 

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : 
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! 
I never thought to ask, I never knew : 
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 15 

The self-same Power that brought me there brought 
you. 

LINCOLN 

FROM THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE 
James Russell Lowell 

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led, 

With ashes on her head, 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 5 

To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan, 10 

Repeating us by rote : 
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, 

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 15 

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 



EIGHTH YEAR 213 

Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 20 

Not lured by any cheat of birth, 

But by his clear-grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 

They knew that outward grace is dust ; 

They could not choose but trust 25 

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, 

Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 30 

A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 

Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, 

Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 

Nothing of Europe here, 35 

Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 

Ere any names of Serf and Peer 

Could Nature's equal scheme deface 

And thwart her genial will ; 

Here was a type of the true elder race, 40 

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 

I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 45 

Safe in himself as in a fate. 
So always firmly he : 
He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 50 

Till the wise years decide. 



214 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 55 
' Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 



SELECTION FROM THE LAY OF THE LAST 
MINSTREL 

Sra Walter Scott 

MY NATIVE LAND 

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned 5 

From wandering on a foreign strand ! 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 10 

Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 15 

Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 



EIGHTH YEAR 215 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

" We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction between this 
[the Pearly Nautilus] and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the 
ancients. The name applied to both shows that each has long been 
compared to a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary 
or the Encyclopaedia, to which he refers. If you will look into Roget's 
Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells, and 
a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging com- 
partments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, 
which is built in a widening spiral." . . . 

" I have now and then found a naturalist who still worried over the 
distinction between the Pearly Nautilus and the Paper Nautilus, or 
Argonauta. As the stories about both are mere fables, attaching to the 
Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war, as well as to these two mollusks, 
it seems over-nice to quarrel with the poetical handling of a fiction 
sufficiently justified by the name commonly applied to the ship of pearl 
as well as the ship of paper." — The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — ■ 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 5 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their stream- 
ing hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl 

And every chambered cell, 10 

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 



216 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 15 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 20 

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the 
old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by 
thee, 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25 

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice 
that sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 30 

Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting 
sea! 



EIGHTH YEAR 217 

TO THE DANDELION 

James Russell Lowell 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, 

High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 5 

An Eldorado in the grass have found, 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 10 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 

'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 15 

Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my topics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 20 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 

In the white lily's breezy tent, 25 

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 



218 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 30 

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 35 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with 
thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 

Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 40 

Ahd I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 45 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 50 

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 



EIGHTH YEAR 219 



FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT 

Robert Burns 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ! 
The coward slave, we pass him by, 
We dare be poor for a' that ! 

For a' that, and a' that, 5 

Our toils obscure, and a' that ; 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man 's the gowd for a' that ! 

What though on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hodden-gray, and a' that ; 10 

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
A man 's a man for a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 15 
Is king o' men for a' that ! 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
Though hundreds worship at his word, 

He 's but a coof for a' that. 20 

For a' that, and a' that, 

His ribbon, star, and a' that ; 
The man of independent mind, 
He looks and laughs at a' that. 



220 POEMS FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 25 

A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
But an honest man 's aboon his might, 
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that I 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their dignities, and a' that ; 3u 

The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 
Are higher rank than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may — 

As come it will for a' that — 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 35 

May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 

It 's coming yet, for a' that. 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that ! 40 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

A visitor to Cambridge, in Massachusetts, is very sure 
to make his first question, Where did Mr. Longfellow live ? 
and any one whom he meets will be able to give the answer. 
The ample, dignified mansion, built in Colonial days, and 
famous as the headquarters of Washington during the first 
year of the War for Independence, is in the midst of broad 
fields, and looks across meadows to the winding Charles 
and the gentle hills beyond. Great elms, fragrant lilacs 
and syringas, stand by the path which leads to the door ; and 
when the poet was living, the passer-by would often catch a 
glimpse of him as he paced up and down the shaded veranda 
which is screened by the shrubbery. 

Here came, in the summer of 1837, a slight, studious- 
looking young man, who lifted the heavy brass knocker, 
which hung then as it does now upon the front door, and 
very likely thought of the great general as he let it fall with 
a clang. He had called to see the owner of the house, Mrs. 
Andrew Craigie, widow of the apothecary-general of the 
Continental Army in the Revolution. The visitor asked if 
there was a room in her house which he could occupy. The 
stately old lady, looking all the more dignified for the turban 
which was wound about her head, answered, as she looked 
at the youthful figure : — 

"I no longer lodge students." 

" But I am not a student ; I am a professor in the Uni- 
versity." 

"A professor?" She looked curiously at one so like 
most students in appearance. 

" I am Professor Longfellow," he said. 

" Ah ! that is different. I will show you what there is." 



222 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

She led him up the broad staircase, and, proud of her house, 
opened one spacious room after another, only to close the 
door of each, saying, " You cannot have that," until at length 
she led him into the southeast corner-room of the second 
story. " This was General Washington's chamber," she said. 
" You may have this ; " and here he gladly set up his home. 
The house was a large one, and already Edward Everett 
and Jared Sparks had lived here. Mr. Sparks was engaged, 
singularly enough, upon the Life and Writings of Wash- 
ington in the very house which Washington had occupied. 
Afterwards, when Mr. Longfellow was keeping house here, 
Mr. Joseph E. Worcester, the maker of the dictionary, 
shared it with him, for there was room for each family to 
keep a separate establishment, and even a third could have 
found independent quarters. When Mrs. Craigie died Mr. 
Longfellow bought the house, and there was his home until 
he died. 

When he came to Cambridge to be Professor of Modern 
Languages and Literature in Harvard College, he was thirty 
years old. He was but eighteen when he graduated at 
Bowdoin College, in the class in which Nathaniel Hawthorne 
also belonged, and he had given such promise that he was 
almost immediately called to be professor at Bowdoin. He 
accepted the appointment on condition that he might have 
three years of travel and study in Europe. The immediate 
result of his life abroad was in some translations, chiefly 
from the Spanish, in some critical papers, and in Outre Mer 
[Over Seas], his first prose work. He continued at Bow- 
doin until 1835, when he was invited to Harvard. Again 
he went to Europe for further study and travel, and after 
his return spent seventeen years in his professorship. 

Two years after he had begun to teach in Harvard Col- 
lege he published Hyperion, a Romance. Hyperion, in 
classic mythology, is the child of heaven and earth, and 
in this romance the story is told of a young man who had 
earthly sorrows and fortunes, but heavenly desires and 
hopes. It contains many delightful legends and fancies 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 223 

which travel and student life in Europe had brought to the 
poet's knowledge, and which he had carried back to his 
countrymen in America. Once afterward, in 1849, he pub* 
lished a romance of New England, Kavanagh ; but in the 
same year that saw Hyperion there appeared a thin vol- 
ume of poems entitled Voices of the Night ; and after that 
Mr. Longfellow continued to publish volumes of poetry, 
sometimes a book being devoted to a single poem, as Evan- 
geline or The Courtship of Miles Standish or Hiawatha, 
more often containing a collection of shorter poems, and 
sometimes, as in the Tales of a Wayside Inn, a number of 
poems pleasantly woven into a story in verse. 

The house in which Mr. Longfellow lived was full of 
suggestion of his work, and it remains much as he left it. 
" The study," as some one wrote of it during the poet's 
lifetime, " is a busy literary man's workshop : the table is 
piled with pamphlets and papers in orderly confusion ; a 
high desk in one corner suggests a practice of standing 
while writing, and gives a hint of one secret of the poet's 
singularly erect form at an age when the body generally 
begins to stoop and the shoulders to grow round ; an orange- 
tree stands in one window ; near it a stuffed stork keeps 
watch ; on the table is Coleridge's ink-stand ; upon the walls 
are crayon likenesses of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Sumner." 
Here, too, is the chair made from the wood of the spread- 
ing chestnut-tree under which the village smithy stood, and 
given to the poet by the children of Cambridge ; here is 
the pen presented by " beautiful Helen of Maine," the old 
Danish song-book and the antique pitcher ; upon the stair- 
case is the old clock, which 

11 Points and beckons with its hands ; " 
one looks out from the chamber windows across the meadows 
upon the gentle Charles, — 

" Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, 
And have made thy margin dear ; M 

following the river one sees the trees and chimneys of Elm 

wood, and perhaps a flight of 



224 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

" herons winging their way 
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets ; V 

while farther still one catches sight of the white tower of 
Mount Auburn and thinks of the graves there to which so 
many of the poet's friends were borne, and to which he 
himself was at last carried. It would be a pleasant task to 
read closely in Mr. Longfellow's poems and discover all the 
kind words which he has written of his friends. A man is 
known by the company he keeps. How fine must have been 
that nature which gathered into immortal verse the friend- 
ship of Agassiz, Hawthorne, Lowell, Sumner, Whittier, 
Tennyson, Irving ; and chose for companionship among the 
dead such names as Chaucer, Dante, Keats, Milton, Shake- 
speare. All these names, and more, will be found strung 
as beads upon the golden thread of Longfellow's verse. 

After all, the old house where the poet lived was most 
closely connected with his poems, because it was a home. 
Here his children grew, and out of its chambers issued those 
undying poems which sing the deep life of the fireside. In 
The Golden Mile-Stone he sings : — 

" Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-Stone ; 
Is the central point, from which he measures 

Every distance 
Through the gateways of the world around him ; " 

and the secret of Mr. Longfellow's power is in the perfect 
art with which he brought all the treasures of the old world 
stories, and all the hopes of the new, to this central point ; 
his own fireside fed the flames of poetic genius, and kept 
them burning steadily and purely. 

Mr. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 
27, 1807. He had two sons and three daughters, and these 
three are celebrated in The Children's Hour. The poet 
always welcomed children to his house, and he was made 
very happy by their thought of him. His seventy-fifth birth- 
day was celebrated by school-children all over the country. 
A few days after, he was taken ill, and died March 24, 
1882. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 225 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

The poet Whittier was born on his father's farm, near 
Haverhill, Mass., December 17, 1807, and lived the life 
of a farmer's boy until he was eighteen years old. In his 
poem of Snow-Bound one will get the best knowledge of 
Whittier's boyhood : how he worked in barn and field ; 
listened to the stories which his elders told around the 
blazing hearth ; caught knowledge from the district school 
and from the lively schoolmaster who boarded at his father's 
house ; saw a newspaper once a week, and read in it of 
struggles for freedom in Greece and adventures in Central 
America ; read over and over again the small stock of books 
in the farmhouse, the almanac with its pithy sayings and 
anecdotes, and the lives of Quakers, for the Whittiers were of 
the Quaker faith. The best that he got was in the beauty 
of his mother's life, the strong, wise character of his father, 
the affection of his sisters, and all the sweet, noble influences 
of an industrious, God-fearing home. 

The family lived respectably and in tolerable comfort, but 
the farm was burdened with debt, and frugality and persist- 
ent industry were indispensable. The children, as well as 
their elders, had to work in doors and out. The young boy 
had only ten or twelve weeks of school in a year. He longed 
for learning, but the means of procuring it were lacking. 
Happily, the man who worked for his father on the farm in 
summer eked out his income by making women's shoes in the 
winter, and the boy learned enough of him to earn a small 
sum, sufficient to pay the expense of a summer term at an 
academy. At the close of the term he tried another way of 
earning money, and taught a small school in a neighboring 
town. The next year he worked on the farm, and in the 
spring of 1830 went to Hartford, Conn., and edited The New 
England Review for two years, when he was called home 
by the illness of his father, whose death, soon after, made it 
necessary for him to take the charge of the farm for several 



226 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

years* In 1833 he published a pamphlet entitled Justice 
and Expediency, on the slavery question, and the same year 
he was a member of the convention which formed the Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society. He was a member of the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature in 1835. In 1838 he became editor 
of the Pennsylvania Freeman, at Philadelphia, where his 
office was sacked and burned by a mob. His health failing, 
at the end of two years he returned to Massachusetts, and 
took up his residence with his mother and sister at Ames- 
bury. In 1845 he became associate editor of the National 
Era at Washington, D. C, in which paper Uncle Tom's 
Cabin was published. 

He commenced writing in his sixteenth year. His early 
verses indicated his scanty opportunities for reading and 
study. Some of them were printed in the local papers, and 
later some found a place in magazines. The first collection 
of them was made in 1847. Ten years later a more com- 
plete edition was published. He was a frequent contributor 
to The Atlantic Monthly magazine from its establishment. 
During the last part of his life he spent much of his time at 
Oak Knoll, Danvers, though still retaining his residence in 
Amesbury, eight miles from the old homestead, the scene of 
Snoiv-Bound. His health was never robust, and in his later 
years he wrote nothing without suffering. 

Mr. Whittier was a member of the religious Society of 
Friends, and a regular attendant of its meetings ; but he 
was broad in his sympathies, and kindly disposed towards 
all who, in different ways from his own, sought to serve God 
and benefit their fellow men. He took an active interest in 
all questions involving the honor and welfare of his country. 
He aided in forming one of the first temperance organiza- 
tions in the State of Massachusetts. The relations of Labor 
and Capital, Public Charities, Woman Suffrage, Peace, and 
Religious Toleration received his earnest attention. He re- 
garded it a matter of duty to take an active part in elections : 
but although he was twice a member of the Electoral College, 
as a rule he declined overtures for acceptance of public office. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 227 

His prose writings consist of Leaves from Margaret 
Smith's Journal, Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, 
Recreations and Miscellanies, and various contributions to 
the anti-slavery discussions. His love for and interest in 
children have been manifested in his very popular books, 
Child Life and Child Life in Prose. He edited with care- 
ful introductory essays the Journal of John Woolman, The 
Patience of Hope by Dora Greenwell, and Songs of Three 
Centuries. 

Mr. Whittier never married, and never travelled beyond 
his own country. He preferred a quiet, rural life. He 
loved the sea, the beaches and islands of the New England 
coast, and in summer was in the habit of visiting the moun- 
tains of New Hampshire, especially the Sandwich range, 
terminating in the sharp peak of Chocorua. One of these 
hills has been named Mt. Whittier by the people who live 
near it ; and just as the beaches and country roads of Essex 
County have been touched with the light from Whittier's 
poems, so he wove into his verse the mountain glory and 
the ripple of the brook. 

It was Whittier's delight to " plight the troth," or marry 
fact and fancy, and his poetry is full of the poetic side of 
every-day matters. He honored noble living wherever he 
saw it, but most of all he delighted to honor those heroes 
whom the world has made little of, men and women of 
humble life but generous self-sacrifice, who have toiled and 
suffered for others, and borne shame for righteousness' 
sake. He found subjects for his verse the world over, but 
he liked best to find them in obscure corners where other 
people had passed them by. 

In his eighty-first year, he prepared for publication a 
definitive edition of his writings, which was published in 
seven volumes, four of poetry and three of prose. He fur- 
nished a number of interesting head-notes to his poems, and 
made a careful revision of the text. His death occurred at 
Hampton Falls, N. H., September 7, 1892, when he was 
nearly eighty-five years old. 



228 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

It has often been said that the real test of the greatness 
of a country is the men it produces. One purpose of this 
book is to give to the young people of Illinois a sense of 
acquaintanceship with some of the best men that America 
has produced. One of them, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote 
of another, after reading some of his best poems : " We will 
not again disparage America now we have seen 
Life of what men it will bear. What a certificate of good 
vol. ii, ' elements in the soil, climate, and institutions is 
p ' ' Lowell, whose admirable verses I have just read." 

James Russell Lowell was a man of wide interest and 
deep feeling ; and so he got much out of life, he lived richly. 
Some of the poems that you have studied, The Dandelion, 
The Oak, The Vision of Sir Launfal, and Bhoecus, show 
his sense of fellowship with nature. To one of his friends he 
wrote, " How I do love the earth ! I feel it thrill under my 
feet, I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if 
something passed into my dancing blood from it." In his 
poem, Under the Willows, he says, — 

" But I in June am midway to believe 
A tree among my far progenitors, 
Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 
Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 
There is between us. Surely there are times 
When they consent to own me of their kin, 
And condescend to me, and call me cousin." 

And again in one of the Biglow Papers he writes, — 

" Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree 
But half forgives my bein' human." 

He gained not only joy but tranquillity and wisdom from 
a life close to nature. Like the shepherd of King Admetus, 
of whom he tells us, — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 229 

" It seemed the loveliness of things 
Did teach him all their use, 
For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, 
He found a healing power profuse." 

He loved men as well as nature. To a fellow poet he 
wrote, " Think of me after I am gone (for in the nature of 
things you will survive me) as one who had scudder's 
a really friendly feeling for everything human." fZeiifyl\. J 
The Vision of Sir Launfal tells us of his belief "' p - 126 - 
in the brotherhood of men ; and Yussouf, of his faith in the 
possibilities of nobleness even in the outcast. 

So true a democrat as these poems show him to be could 
not but enter with ardor into the anti-slavery movement. 
He was opposed to the Mexican War, not only because he 
shrank from the thought of war in general, but because 
he felt that the chief purpose in this one was to add to the 
slave-holding territory of the United States. In 1846 he 
began the first series of Biglow Papers. It included a 
number of satirical poems written in the Yankee dialect. 
Their keenness of wit, together with the feeling of indigna- 
tion and scorn that they disclosed, made them most effective. 
The best known are the one beginning 

1 ' Thrash away, you '11 hev to rattle 
On them kettle-drums o' yourn " 

and the one with the refrain 

" But John P. 
Robinson he." 

Read them when you study the Mexican War. 

During the Civil War he wrote a second series of Biglow 
Papers. In these we see how his hatred of war gave way 
before his love for the Union, which stood to him for the 
principle of democracy. Three of his nephews were killed 
in the war. For a touching picture of his grief at their loss, 
a grief mingled with pride in their heroism, and of his long- 
ing for such a close of the war as should bring 

" Fair wages for brave men, 
A nation saved, a race delivered ! " 



230 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

read the poem in this series beginning, 

" Dear Sir, — Your letter come to han' 
Requestin' me to please be funny." 

This poem is marred only by Lowell's failure to recognize 
at this time the honesty of the Southern leaders. 

Lowell, while at first chafing under the apparent inde- 
cision of Lincoln, came soon to recognize the real wisdom of 
the president's leadership. You have read the poet's noble 
tribute to the martyr in the Ode Recited at the Harvard 
Commemoration (sixth stanza). Read the last stanza of the 
ode, that you may have some sense of Lowell's devotion to 
his country. 

Lowell loved nature, loved men, and loved his country ; 
moreover, he had the power to inspire like feelings in others. 
It is natural that every American boy and girl should wish 
to know something of the life of such a countryman. 

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., 
February 22, 1819, and died there August 12, 1891. 
The house in which he was born and died, Elmwood, was 
about a mile from Harvard College, the oldest college 
in the United States. It was one of a group of houses 
built before the War for Independence by Boston merchants 
and crown officers, who in the war took the side of Eng- 
land. The houses were built on a broad road known as 
Tory Row, and each had a considerable estate attached to 
it. Elmwood was finally bought by Charles Lowell, min- 
ister of one of the Boston churches, and father of the poet. 
Another of the houses, Craigie House, became later the 
home of Longfellow ; so the two poets were neighbors. 
Lowell's poems and prose essays contain hundreds of refer- 
ences to the trees, the birds, the brook, the fields, the river 
Charles, and the people that were a part of his Elmwood 
life. Not long before his death he described the house to 
an English friend as follows : " 'T is a pleasant old house, 
just about twice as old as I am, four miles from Boston, in 
what was once the country and is now a populous suburb. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 231 

But it still has some ten acres of open about it, and some 
fine old trees. When the worst comes to the worst (if I 
live so long), I shall still have four and a half acres left 
with the house, the rest belonging to my brothers and sisters 
or their heirs. It is a square house, with four rooms on a 
floor, like some houses of the Georgian era I have seen in 
English provincial towns, only they are of brick and this 
is of wood. But it is solid, with heavy oaken beams, the 
spaces between which in the four outer walls are filled in 
with brick, though you must n't fancy a brick-and-timber 
house, for outwardly it is sheathed with wood. Inside there 
is much wainscot (of deal) painted white in the fashion of 
the time when it was built. It is very sunny, the sun rising 
so as to shine (at an acute angle, to be sure) through the 
northern windows, and going round the other three sides in 
the course of the day. There is a pretty staircase with the 
quaint old twisted banisters, — which they call balusters 
now ; but mine are banisters. My library occupies two 
rooms opening into each other by arches at the sides of the 
ample chimneys. The trees I look out on are the earliest 
things I remember. There you have me in my new-old 
quarters. But you must not fancy a large house — rooms 
sixteen feet square, and on the ground floor, nine high. It 
was large as things went here, when it was built, and has a 
certain air of amplitude about it as from some inward sense 
of dignity." 

Lowell entered Harvard College at fifteen years of age. 
Here he gave indifferent attention to many of the tasks set 
him, but spent much time in reading the best books. In 
1838 he graduated. For a time he studied law, but his 
decided literary bent drew him away from that profession. 
In 1841, a small volume of his poems was published. 
Three years later he was married to Maria White, a young 
woman of refinement and delicacy of feeling and of deep 
moral convictions. Her devotion to anti-slavery principles 
was not without its influence upon her husband. 

In the next few years he wrote many articles for anti- 



232 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

slavery papers and the first series of the Biglow Papers. 
But he was a student and writer of literature for its own 
sake as well as a reformer ; and in these years some of his 
finest poems were written, among them The Vision of Sir 
Launfal. He sometimes felt that his ardor for reform was 
a hindrance in his career as a man of letters. About this 
time he wrote his Fable for Critics, in which he dashed off 
his impressions of the chief literary people of America, 
among them Longfellow, Whittier, and Bryant. Of him- 
self he wrote : — 

" There is Lowell, who 's striving* Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching." 

In 1851 and 1852 he visited Europe with his family. 
He spent much of his time there in the study of the Italian 
language and literature. 

Of the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Lowell three died 
very young, the only son being buried in Rome. The oldest 
child was a daughter, Blanche. The touching poem, The 
First Snow-Fall, shows how deeply her father felt her 
death. Mrs. Lowell had always been frail, and in 1853 
she too died, leaving one little daughter, Mabel. The night 
that Mrs. Lowell died at Elmwood, a child was born to the 
Longfellows in Craigie House. Longfellow's poem, The 
Two Angels, commemorates the two events. 

For many years Longfellow had been Smith Professor of 
the French and Spanish Languages and Professor of Belles 
Lettres in Harvard College. In 1855 he resigned, and 
Lowell was chosen to take the place. He spent two years 
in Europe in preparation for the work, and in 1857 took 
up his duties in Harvard College. In this year, too, he 
married Miss Frances Dunlap, who had had charge of the 
little Mabel since her mother's death. 

During the twenty years of his active professorship he 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 233 

wrote much. For some time he was editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly, and for ten years he was connected with the 
North American Review, Most of what he wrote appeared 
first in these magazines. He wrote many prose essays upon 
literature, history, and politics, and some more personal 
ones, such as Cambridge Twenty Years Ago and My Garden 
Acquaintance. The second series of Biglow Papers was 
written during the Civil War, and after its close Lowell 
wrote some of his noblest poems, among them the Com- 
memoration Ode. 

President Hayes in 1877 named Lowell to represent the 
United States in Spain. He served here for two years and 
was then transferred to England, where he remained for six 
years. Here he was very popular. Englishmen admired 
his generous culture, the ease and brilliancy with which he 
spoke on public and semi-public occasions, and his tact in 
the conduct of business. They admired, too, his loyalty to 
America and her institutions. As American minister, poet, 
and friend of Longfellow, he spoke at the unveiling of a 
bust of Longfellow in Westminster Abbey. During the 
years of his foreign residence he received honors from Span- 
ish, English, and Scottish universities, as well as the highest 
honors that Harvard College could bestow. 

After the close of his foreign service, he divided his time 
for several years between the homes of his sister and daugh- 
ter in Massachusetts and the haunts that had become dear 
to him in England. Upon his final return from England in 
1889, he went to Elm wood, where his daughter was again 
living. Here he revised and rearranged his writings, and 
here in 1891 he died. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

It is a little significant that Bryant's first published poem, 
The Embargo, 1809, should have been in effect a political 
pamphlet. The union of politics and poetry was in the 



234 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

man, and that it should have appeared in literature may 
readily be explained by the fact that the writer was only 
thirteen years old at the time, having been born at Cum- 
mington, Mass., November 3, 1794. The two strands 
were twisted into the cord of his destiny ; but though 
Bryant's patriotism flamed forth more than once in his 
verse, notably in Our Country's Call, he never after his 
first trial made his poetry a mere vehicle for political 
doctrines. 

Bryant's father was a cultivated country doctor, who 
looked carefully after his son's reading and sent him to 
begin a college education at Williams. He spent a little 
less than a year at college, but his father's limited income 
forbade further collegiate study, and he was forced to take 
up the study of the law, which he had chosen for his pro- 
fession, and was admitted to the bar in 1815. 

In boyhood, during his studies, and after he had been 
admitted to practice, he was constantly allured by poetry, 
and some of his most famous poems, including Thanatopsu 
and To a Waterfowl, were published at this period. In 
1821 he was invited to read a poem before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society of Harvard College, and he read The Ages, 
a stately poem which bore witness to his lofty philosophic 
nature. Shortly after this he issued a small volume of 
poems, scarcely more than a pamphlet, and containing but 
eight pieces ; yet every one is now a classic, and the little 
paper book stands chronologically at the head of American 
poetical literature. 

When these poems appeared Bryant was married and 
living at Great Barrington, Mass., as a young lawyer ; 
but he had a growing distaste for the profession, with a 
steadily increasing absorption in literary pursuits, as well as 
strong interest in public affairs. He spent much of his time 
in periodical work, and in 1825 finally went to New York 
to live, and undertook the management of a monthly jour- 
nal, the New York Review. He earned a precarious liveli- 
hood by this and miscellaneous work, but the Review went 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 235 

the way of similar ventures, and in 1826 he made a connec- 
tion which in one form or other he retained the rest of his 
life. He became, in that year, a member of the staff of 
the New York Evening Post, and in 1829 was chief editor 
and part proprietor. There can be little doubt, however, 
that the absorbing occupation of daily journalism reduced 
the sum of his contributions to pure literature. Much that 
he did in prose after this time was in the way of relaxation, 
as in the letters of travel written during his several journeys 
and collected as Letters from a Traveller, Letters from the 
East, and Letters from Spain and other Countries. 

His poetic work was infrequent. In 1842 he published 
The Fountain and other Poems, and collections of later 
poems were issued in 1844 and 1863. One expression of 
his poetic nature was in his strong love of the country and 
country life. He resorted frequently to the old homestead 
at Cummington, which came into his possession, but he 
created special associations with Roslyn on Long Island, an 
estate which he bought in 1843 and always retained. It 
was there in 1865 that his wife died, and in his loneliness 
Mr. Bryant began the translation of the Iliad of Homer as 
an occupation for his troubled mind. He finished this task 
in 1870, and followed it with a translation of the Odyssey. 

He was frequently called upon to make addresses in con- 
nection with literary anniversaries. A volume of Orations 
and Addresses contains much of his work of this kind ; 
and his last appearance in public was on the occasion of 
the unveiling of a bust of Mazzini in Central Park. He 
delivered an oration, but the exposure brought on an illness 
from which he died a few days after, June 12, 1878. His 
son-in-law, Parke Godwin, has written his life and edited 
his writings. 



236 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



ALFRED TENNYSON 

Alfred Tennyson, the most famous English poet of 
the latter half of the nineteenth century, was born August 
6, 1809, in the village of Somersby, in Lincolnshire, Eng- 
land. He was one of a large family of children, and at 
least one of his brothers showed also poetic genius. His 
father was rector of the English church in the quiet English 
village, and the young poet grew up in the shelter of a 
refined home. Mrs. Ritchie, a daughter of Thackeray, tells 
a pleasant story of the family life : — 

" These handsome children had, beyond most children, 
that wondrous toy at their command which some people 
call imagination. The boys played great games, like Ar- 
thur's knights ; they were champions and warriors defend- 
ing a stone heap, or again they would set up opposing 
camps with a king in the midst of each. . . . When dinner- 
time came, and they all sat round the table, each in turn 
put a chapter of his history underneath the potato bowl, — 
long, endless histories, chapter after chapter, diffuse, ab- 
sorbing, unending, as are the stories of real life of which 
each sunrise opens on a new part ; some of these romances 
were in letters like Clarissa Harlowe. Alfred used to tell 
a story which lasted for months, and which was called The 
Old Horse." 

When Alfred and his brother Charles were scarcely more 
than boys, they published a book under the title Poems by 
Two Brothers. A year after this little book came out, 
Alfred Tennyson was entered as a student at Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, and there he formed friendships which 
lasted through life, though one friend, Arthur Hallam by 
name, the dearest of all, and the promised husband of Ten- 
nyson's sister, died in 1833. But he is connected with Ten- 
nyson's memory more than all who lived, for his death 
so moved the poet as to keep him silent for ten years. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 237 

Tennyson had published a volume of poems after leaving 
the university, and again in 1832, but now he buried himself 
in study and meditation, seeing but few persons, and brood- 
ing over great thoughts which found expression in the series 
of poems afterward published under the title, In Memoriam, 
A. H. H., that is, To the Memory of Arthur Henry Hallam. 
In this, one of the famous books of the century, Tennyson 
seeks to bring life and immortality to light. Carlyle de- 
scribes him thus at this time : — 

" One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great 
shock of rough dusty-dark hair ; bright, laughing hazel eyes ; 
massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate ; of 
sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking ; clothes 
cynically loose, free-and-easy ; s.mokes infinite tobacco. His 
voice is musical-metallic — fit for loud laughter and pierc- 
ing wail, and all that may lie between ; speech and specu- 
lation free and plenteous : I do not meet, in these late 
decades, such company over a pipe ! " 

In Memoriam, though written during these ten years of 
half solitary life, was not published for some time. Mean- 
while, in 1842, his Poems appeared in two volumes, and 
at once gave him a high rank ; in 1847, he published The 
Princess, and when, in 1850, he published In Memoriam, 
he became the great successor of Wordsworth, who died this 
same year. Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate in 
Wordsworth's place, and thereafter was looked upon till his 
death, October 6, 1892, as the greatest of living English 
poets. 

His position as poet laureate led him to write, from 
time to time, noble patriotic poems, like the Ode on the 
Death of the Duke of Wellington, and The Charge of the 
Light Brigade. He showed his ardent love of England in 
other ways. His Idylls of the King was a poetic effort to 
bring to modern* minds the chivalric ideal as dimly shad- 
owed in the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the 
Round Table. Maud was a passionate protest against a 
selfish indifference to national honor and mere regard for 



238 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

material wealth, and he wrote tragedies intended to recon- 
struct old English history. In 1884, he was made Baron 
Tennyson of Aldworth and of Freshwater, so that thereafter 
he bore the title of Lord Tennyson. 

It is impossible to sum up in brief space an estimate of 
the essence of Tennyson's poetic greatness. In any analy- 
sis of it, the purity, elevation, and depth of thought, the 
pervading quality of imagination, and the constant beauty 
of structure must primarily be reckoned with. In other 
words, his mind was amply adequate to supplying him with 
the most noble and lovely themes, and his mastery over his 
art enabled him to put them into noble and lovely forms. 
He gathered up in himself many of the beauties of the poets 
who had gone before him, and has won the tribute of so much 
imitation — often by persons no doubt unconscious of imi- 
tating — that nearly the whole body of English poetry in 
our second half century has been different because of him. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 

Allingham, William 

Robin Redbreast, 39 ; Wishing, 28. 
Ballad, An Old 

Sir Patrick Spens, 62. 
Bible, The 

The One Hundredth Psalm, 93. 
Brooks, Phillips 

Christmas Everywhere, 95. 
Browning, Robert 

Herv^ Riel, 182 ; " How They Brought the Good News 

from Ghent to Aix," 171 ; The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 67. 
Bryant, William Cullen 

Abraham Lincoln, 98 ; The Planting of the Apple-Tree, 

21 ; Robert of Lincoln, 1 ; Song of Marion's Men, 141 ; 

To a Waterfowl, 180. 
Burns, Robert 

For a' That and a' That, 219 ; To a Mountain Daisy, 178. 
Burton, Richard 

Christmastide, 131. 
Campbell, Thomas 

Lord Ullin's Daughter, 110. 
Carlyle, Thomas 

To-Day, 139. 
Cary, Alice 

The Gray Swan, 113 ; An Order for a Picture, 84. 
Cary, Phcebe 

The Leak in the Dike, 123 ; A Legend of the Northland, 

147 ; Little Gottlieb, 44. 
Cowper, William 

John Gilpin, 199 ; The Nightingale and the Glow-worm, 15. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 

Concord Hymn, 140 ; The Mountain and the Squirrel 

(The Fable), 43 ; The Rhodora, 211. 



240 INDEX OF A UTHORS 

Field, Eugene 

Nightfall in Dordrecht, 3. 
Fields, James T. 

Ballad of the Tempest, 35. 
Finch, Francis Miles 

The Blue and the Gray, 151. 
Hemans, Felicia D. 

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England, 

91 ; The Voice of Spring, 144. 
Hogg, James 

A Boy's Song, 32. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 

The Chambered Nautilus, 215 ; Old Ironsides, 143. 
Houghton, Lord 

Good-Night and Good-Morning, 8. 
Jackson, Helen Hunt 

Down to Sleep, 9 ; October's Bright Blue Weather, 36 ; 

September, 34. 
Keats, John 

On the Grasshopper and Cricket, 133. 
Lanier, Sidney 

Song of the Chattahoochee, 209. 
Larcom, Lucy 

Plant a Tree, 105. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 

The Arrow and the Song, 99 ; The Bell of Atri, 101 ; 

The Builders, 121 ; The Children's Hour, 16 ; Christmas 

Bells, 93 ; The Emperor's Bird's-Nest, 59 ; The Harvest 

Moon, 118 ; Hiawatha's Childhood, 18 ; Hiawatha's Sail- 
ing, 24 ; The Legend of the Crossbill, 150 ; Paul Re- 

vere's Ride, 51 ; Rain in Summer, 115 ; Spring, 106 ; The 

Village Blacksmith, 41. 
Lowell, James Russell 

The Fountain, 88 ; June (Vision of Sir Launfal), 165 ; 

Lincoln (Harvard Commemoration Ode), 212; To the 

Dandelion, 217; Winter (Vision of Sir Launfal), 167; 

Yussouf, 158. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 241 

MacDonald, George 

Sir Lark and King Sun, 156. 
Mackay, Charles 

The Miller of the Dee, 99. 
Miller, Emily Huntington 

The Bluebird, 33. 
Moore, Clement C. 

A Visit from St. Nicholas, 10. 
Read, Thomas Buchanan 

Sheridan's Ride, 89. 
Rexford, Eben Eugene 

The Bluebird, 79. 
Sangster, Margaret 

Our Flag, 14. 
Scott, Sir Walter 

Alice Brand (Lady of the Lake), 160 ; Hunting Song, 

164; Young Lochinvar (Marmion), 107. 
Sill, Edward Rowland 

Opportunity, 211. 
Tate, Nahum 

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night, 50. 
Taylor, Bayard 

The Song of the Camp, 128. 
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 

The Brook, 29 ; The Charge of the Light Brigade, 95 ; 

Christmas (In Memoriam), 132; The Revenge, 191 ; Sir 

Galahad, 175 ; Song — The Owl, 80. 
Thaxter, Celia 

Maize, The Nation's Emblem, 119 ; Piccola, 13 ; The 

Sandpiper, 77 ; The Sparrows, 48 ; Spring, 31. 
Van Dyke, Henry 

The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, 153. 
Ward, Lydia A. Coonley 

Why Do Bells for Christinas Ring ? 12. 
Whitman, Walt 

O Captain ! My Captain ! 174. 



242 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Whittier, John Greenleaf 

Barbara Frietchie, 81 ; The Corn-Song, 5 ; The Pumpkin, 

37 ; Snow-Bound : — Kitchen Scene, 57 ; The Mother, 134 ; 

The Schoolmaster, 136 ; The Sisters, 135 ; The Storm, 

56 ; Telling the Bees, 189. 
Wordsworth, William 

The Daffodils, 109 ; The Kitten and Falling Leaves, 7 ; 

Written in March, 66. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Abraham Lincoln (Bryant), 98. 
Alice Brand (Lady of the Lake), 

160. 
Arrow and the Song, The, 99. 

Ballad of the Tempest, 35. 
Barbara Frietchie, 81. 
Bell of Atri, The, 101. 
Blue and the Gray, The, 151. 
Bluebird, The (Miller), 33. 
Bluebird, The (Rexford), 79. 
Boy's Song, A, 32. 
Brook, The, 29. 
Builders, The, 121. 

Chambered Nautilus, The, 215. 
Charge of the Light Brigade, 

The, 95. 
Children's Hour, The, 16. 
Christmas (In Memoriam),132. 
Christmas Bells, 93. 
Christmas Everywhere, 95. 
Christmastide, 131. 
Concord Hymn, 140. 
Corn-Song, The, 5. 

Daffodils, The, 109. 
Down to Sleep, 9. 

Emperor's Bird's-Nest, 59. 

For a' That and a' That, 219. 
Fountain, The, 88. 



Good-Night and Good-Morning, 

8. 
Gray Swan, The, 113. 

Harvest Moon, The, 118. 
Herve- Kiel, 182. 
Hiawatha's Childhood, 18. 
Hiawatha's Sailing, 24. 
" How They Brought the Good 

News from Ghent to Aix," 

171. 
Hunting Song, 164. 

John Gilpin, 199. 
June (Vision of Sir Launfal), 
165. 

Kitten and Falling Leaves, The, 

7. 

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers 
in New England, The, 91. 

Leak in the Dike, The, 123. 

Legend of the Crossbill, The, 
150. 

Legend of the Northland, A, 147. 

Lincoln (Harvard Commemo- 
ration Ode), 212. 

Little Gottlieb, 44. 

Lord Ullin's Daughter, 110. 

Maize, The Nation's Emblem, 
119. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



243 



Miller of the Dee, The, 99. 
Mountain and the Squirrel, 
The, 43. 

Nightfall in Dordrecht, 3. 
Nightingale and the Glow- 
worm, The, 15. 

O Captain ! My Captain ! 174. 
October's Bright Blue Weather, 

36. 
Old Ironsides, 143. 
On the Grasshopper and Cricket. 

133. 
One Hundredth Psalm, The, 93. 
Opportunity, 211. 
Order for a Picture, An, 84. 
Our Flag, 14. 

Paul Revere's Ride, 51. 

Piccola, 13. 

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 

67. 
Plant a Tree, 105. 
Planting of the Apple-Tree, 

The, 21. 
Pumpkin, The, 37. 

Rain in Summer, 115. 
Revenge, The, 191. 
Rhodora, The, 211. 
Robert of Lincoln, 1. 
Robin Redbreast, 39. 
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, The, 
153. 

Sandpiper, The, 77. 
September, 34. 
Sheridan's Ride, 89. 



Sir Galahad, 175. 

Sir Lark and King Sun, 156. 

Sir Patrick Spens, 62. 

Snow-Bound: — Kitchen-Scene, 
57 ; The Mother, 134 ; The 
Schoolmaster, 136 ; The Sis- 
ters, 135 ; The Storm, 56. 

Song — The Owl, 80. 

Song of Marion's Men, 141. 

Song of the Camp, The, 128. 

Song of the Chattahoochee, 209. 

Sparrows, The, 48. 

Spring (Longfellow), 106. 

Spring (Thaxter), 31. 

Telling the Bees, 189. 
To a Mountain Daisy, 178. 
To a Waterfowl, 180. 
To the Dandelion, 217. 
To-Day, 139. 

Village Blacksmith, The, 41. 
Vision of Sir Launfal : — June, 

165 ; Winter, 167. 
Visit from St. Nicholas, A, 10. 
Voice of Spring, The, 144. 

While Shepherds Watched their 
Flocks by Night, 50. 

Why Do Bells for Christmas 
Ring ? 12. 

Winter (Vision of Sir Laun- 
fal), 167. 

Wishing, 28. 

Written in March, 66. 

Young Lochinvar (Marmion), 

107. 
Yussouf, 158. 



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